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Lead People…Manage ThingsMaster the Five Key Facets of High Performance Leadership

Brian Ward

Affinity PublishingEdmonton, Alberta Canada

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AFFINITY PUBLISHING

Published in Canada and the United States of America

by Affinity Publishing, a division of Affinity Consulting

#105, 215 Blackburn Drive East,

Edmonton AB T6W 1B9 Canada

www.affinitymc.com | www.Training-Store.com | www.FacetLeadership.com

Copyright © 2009 by Affinity Consulting

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in aretrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,mechanical, photocopying, scanning, recording, or otherwise, without the priorpermission of the publisher.

First Print Edition August 2009 ISBN 978-0-557-14720-5

FACET Leadership™, The FACET Leadership Model™, The CustomerLoyalty Grid™ and the 4M Model of Change™ are trademarks of AffinityConsulting.

DiSC®, Personal Listening Profile®, Coping and Stress Profile®, TeamDimensions Profile® are registered trademarks of Inscape Publishing. TimeMastery Profile™ is a trademark of Inscape Publishing. Affinity Consulting andTraining Inc. is an Inscape Publishing Authorized Distributor.

This book is dedicated to the many leaders in this world who arestriving each and every day to make a real difference in the lives ofothers. You know who you are.

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Contents

PREFACE .............................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................................5

CHAPTER 1: THE POWER OF FOCUS........................................................... 13

ONE BIG IDEA THAT ENDURES .......................................................................................... 13WHAT MOTIVATES PEOPLE TO FOLLOW A LEADER?........................................................ 18TIPS FOR CREATING A CLEAR FOCUS................................................................................... 20SELF-ASSESSMENT: DO YOU HAVE AN INSPIRING FOCUS? .......................................... 24A FINAL NOTE ON FOCUS................................................................................................... 27

CHAPTER 2: AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIP ....................................................29

SHOWING THE REAL YOU...................................................................................................... 29THE LEADER’S INNER JOURNEY........................................................................................... 31HOW CAN YOU ACHIEVE GREATER SELF-KNOWLEDGE?................................................ 31HELP OTHERS BECOME LEADERS TOO ............................................................................... 32MUTUAL TRUST AT NISSAN .................................................................................................. 34TIPS FOR DISCOVERING YOUR TRUE SELF.......................................................................... 36SUMMARY OF KEY QUESTIONS............................................................................................ 38A FINAL NOTE ON AUTHENTICITY ............................................................................... 42

CHAPTER 3: THE POWER TO LEAD…THE COURAGE TO WIN ............43

AN ODD THING ABOUT ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE ...................................................... 43LEADING CHANGE ................................................................................................................. 44THE COURAGE TO FACE REALITY........................................................................................ 48THE COURAGE TO ALLOW CREATIVITY TO BLOSSOM ...................................................... 48THE COURAGE TO CHANGE ALL SYSTEMS THAT DON’T SUPPORT THE FOCUS............ 51THE COURAGE TO SHUT THINGS DOWN, PHASE THINGS OUT ....................................... 52TIPS FOR DEVELOPING COURAGE ....................................................................................... 54SUMMARY OF KEY QUESTIONS............................................................................................ 55A FINAL NOTE ON COURAGE........................................................................................... 58

CHAPTER 4: EMPATHY - MAKING CONVERSATION A CORECOMPETENCY .................................................................................................59

SLOW DOWN AND LISTEN ..................................................................................................... 59HOW TO HAVE QUALITY CONVERSATIONS........................................................................ 60GIVE PEOPLE SPACE AND TIME TO THINK ........................................................................ 63WHEN TEAMS DON’T LISTEN................................................................................................ 65LISTEN TO YOUR CUSTOMERS .............................................................................................. 67WHEN YOU LEAD…DO OTHERS FOLLOW?........................................................................ 70WALK A WHILE IN THEIR SHOES .......................................................................................... 71TIPS FOR ACTIVE LISTENING ................................................................................................ 73SUMMARY OF KEY QUESTIONS............................................................................................ 75A FINAL NOTE ON EMPATHY ........................................................................................... 77

CHAPTER 5: TIMING - BETTER VALUE, FASTER .....................................78

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AN IDEA WHOSE TIME HAS COME ........................................................................................78IT’S OKAY TO BE IMPATIENT.................................................................................................80THE ROLE OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT IN A TIME-BASED STRATEGY..........................82TIPS FOR GETTING TIMING RIGHT.......................................................................................84SUMMARY OF KEY QUESTIONS ............................................................................................87A FINAL NOTE ON TIMING ...............................................................................................90

CONCLUSION................................................................................................... 91

USER’S GUIDE TO THE FIVE KEY FACETS................................................ 93

FOCUS .....................................................................................................................................93AUTHENTICITY .................................................................................................................94COURAGE .............................................................................................................................95EMPATHY..............................................................................................................................96TIMING...................................................................................................................................97

RESOURCES AND SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................ 99

REFERENCES ON CHAPTER 1: FOCUS .................................................................................99REFERENCES ON CHAPTER 2: AUTHENTICITY................................................................100REFERENCES ON CHAPTER 3: COURAGE .........................................................................102REFERENCES ON CHAPTER 4: EMPATHY..........................................................................103REFERENCES ON CHAPTER 5: TIMING .............................................................................104

SELF- ASSESSMENT INSTRUMENTS......................................................... 105

ABOUT THE AUTHOR .................................................................................. 106

PPRREEFFAACCEEWhen you become a leader, you take on a great responsibility...you promise tochange the world for the better.

If your reaction to this statement is ‘I’m only managing an organization, ordepartment, or project, I’m not out to change the world’, then I respectfullysuggest that you learn to be a good manager, but not a leader.

Leaders cause positive change to happen, through people.

Managers control things.

That’s it.

The world needs great leaders. It has its fill of managers.

If you feel that you are not sure whether you are truly committed to becoming agreat leader, if you have not yet made that decision, I would like you to take alook at two scenarios:

SCENARIO 1:

What if you were to make a total commitment to becoming a great leader?

Project yourself ahead 3 to 5 years from now. You have become a great leader.Visualize what positive impact you are having on the world around you…

• How has the world benefited from your actions?

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• What does that feel like?

• What type of people are you associating with?

• Who are you collaborating with?

• Who else is totally committed to the same cause as you?

• What positive actions are you and these people taking?

• How are other people responding to your successes?

• How worthwhile and meaningful has your life become?

• What does that feel like?

• How are you growing and developing?

• How does all this differ from today?

SCENARIO 2

What if you were to be less than fully committed to becoming a great leader?

Project yourself ahead 3 to 5 years from now. You are in a leadership position.Visualize how things will be…

• Have things changed much, or not at all?

• Who are you associating with…perhaps others who are also less thanfully committed?

• What positive impact have you had on the world around you? Lessthan you desired?

• How do you feel about that?

• How worthwhile and meaningful has your life become?

• How does all this differ from today?

I have no doubt that the first scenario is one that you desire, as we all do. Thesecond scenario is one that you probably want to have no part of.

The difference between the two scenarios is so stark, so dramatic, thatsometimes we find it difficult to see ourselves in the first one, and easier to seeourselves in the second.

But for many of us, the second scenario is totally unacceptable.

Many leaders however get caught somewhere between the two scenarios, andfeel at a loss about what to do.

So they reach out to ‘techniques’ to solve their dilemma. That is why I havewritten this book. My focus is to enable others, like you, to become greatleaders.

I have seen many leaders get caught up in fads, and I also have had the pleasureof being associated with leaders who knew the distinction between WHAT theywere attempting to achieve and HOW they achieved it.

That led me to crystallize my thoughts and experiences into 5 key questions forleaders, which this book is designed around. Keep these questions foremost inyour mind, and you won’t go astray.

I have written this book to inspire, inform and challenge you to become a greatleader…the rest, as they say, is up to you.

Every leader who achieved worthwhile outcomes did so with help. This book isdesigned to do just that for you. It will assist you on your journey by askingcritical questions in five key areas. By answering these questions you will be ledto discover insights and above all take action concerning five key facets of yourleadership…

FOCUS: Developing your leadership focus, understanding its true significanceto the world around you and how truly committed you are to achieving it

AUTHENTICITY: Discovering how much you know about yourself as anauthentic leader, your beliefs and values, your strengths and weaknesses andhow others perceive your authenticity

COURAGE: your level of courage and persistence, your ability and willingnessto identify and stop doing those things that don’t support your focus, to startdoing some new things that will support it, and to improve dramatically in otherareas that will benefit your focus, both personally and organizationally

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EMPATHY: your ability to listen to and work through other people, to garnersupport for your focus, to develop an atmosphere of collegiality andinclusiveness, and to empower others who share your focus

TIMING: your sense of timing in getting things done when they need to bedone. Your ability to get off the treadmill and concentrate on what mattersmost, and to enable others to do the same

I call this the FACET Leadership Model™.

The world needs great leaders…if you want to become one, use this book.

A word of caution however…once you start asking these five key questions,you will find that there will be no turning back. Proceed only if you are serious,only if you truly have the desire to become a great leader…

IINNTTRROODDUUCCTTIIOONN

How to Lead People and Manage Things

When writing this book, I received an email from a manager in the CzechRepublic who had read some of our published articles on leadership. She had aquestion that had been causing her grief for some time. Her question wassimple, but not an easy one to answer. She asked, “What’s the differencebetween leadership and management?”

She went on to explain that she had been working as a manager for almost tenyears, and had not yet discovered an answer that was satisfactory. To complicatematters, she was an English-speaking expatriate who worked for a governmentagency in the Czech Republic, and the availability of English texts was limited.

She asked me if I could recommend some texts to her that might lead her out ofher dilemma.

In my reply to her I used the above quote, which I have always felt captures akey distinguishing factor between the two related tasks of leading and managing.

But I hesitated before I recommended texts on leadership. The reason for myhesitation was simple: texts written by consultants and academics differeddramatically from those written by leaders themselves.

I asked myself why this was so?

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The answer came from an unusual source, my second eldest daughter Gillian.At the time, she was in her second year in university studying early childhooddevelopment, and hoping to carve out a career as an educator, probably a gradeschool teacher.

Her answer came in a discussion I had with her when I told her I was writingthis book. She reminded me that the Guiding movement has always been strongon leadership fundamentals…they were also pretty darn good at managing.

They describe it as a Movement for girls, led by women. It challenges girls toreach their potential and empowers them to give leadership and service asresponsible citizens of the world.

Having three daughters who all were (and two still are) part of this marvelousmovement, it struck me that they never seemed to confuse leading andmanaging, nor got themselves in a tangle over the differences between them.

They simply went about doing both at the same time, which is what every goodleader does.

How do they do this?

Some clues might be obtained from the fact that the whole movement is basedon a simple ‘Promise and a Law’, with some Principles added. Each member isasked to make a sincere promise to do their best, to be true to themselves, theirGod (or faith) and to accept the guiding Law.

The Law in turn challenges them to be honest, trustworthy, use their resourceswisely, respect themselves and others, recognize and use their talents andabilities, protect our common environment, live with courage and strength andshare in the sisterhood of Guiding.

Now, what corporation do you know of that has similar promises and laws thatevery member must subscribe to and live up to?

Not many would be my guess.

This is what makes the topic of this book so important to the whole subject ofleadership. The leadership qualities that go into making the Guiding Movementso successful have stood the test of time, and in their totality are unique to thatmovement. Some of these facets may work for you and your organization, whilesome may not.

Now this book is not about the Guiding movement – it is about what works inleadership development…and more specifically, what will work for you, orthose you mentor or coach, to help you or them become a high performanceleader.

This begs the question ‘what are the key facets of high performance leadershipthat have universal application?’

From my work with leaders, as both an internal and external consultant andcoach, I have isolated five key facets of leadership that are consistent with mypersonal research on leadership and with what I have personally observedeffective leaders do…I call it the FACET Leadership Model™:

Focus

Authenticity

Courage

Empathy

Timing

Focus

Effective leaders stay focused on the outcomes they wish to create, and don’tget too married to the methods used to achieve them.

They provide this 'outcomes focus' for their organization by emphasizing themission, vision, values and strategic goals of their organization and at the sametime building the capacity of their organizations to achieve them.

This capacity building emphasizes the need to be flexible, creative andinnovative and avoid becoming fossilized through the adoption of bureaucraticstructures, policies and processes.

Authenticity

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Leaders who are truly authentic attract true and loyal followers, even leaderswho are viewed as being highly driven and maybe even difficult to work for.

Simply put, authentic leaders are viewed as always being themselves…andtherefore followers know what to expect from them.

Followers know they can rely on them, come thick or thin. The great qualitypioneer, W. Edwards Deming referred to this as ‘constancy of purpose’, and itstems from leaders who know themselves, what they are focused on, and whatthey are capable of delivering.

Authenticity builds leadership integrity. Integrity in turn helps to build andmaintain trust, which is the currency a leader needs in order to obtain sustained'buy-in' from key stakeholders.

Courage

The challenges facing leaders today are immense, and require great courage toovercome. Leaders are constantly being challenged by others, be it their ownteam, customers, unions, the public or other stakeholders.

Standing firm in the face of criticism is one hallmark of courageous leaders. Forexample, shifting an organization from being introspective to becomingcustomer focused requires courage when people pay lip service to the newdirection...it means calling people on their bluff, demanding that they too befocused and authentic.

On the other hand, having the courage to admit when they are wrong is also ahallmark of courageous leaders.

When I am coaching leaders, one of the questions I ask them early on is ‘areyou willing to stake your reputation and career on this (focus)?’ If the leaderhesitates, even if it is a great focus, a BIG idea, I know that the leader is not yetready and I will advise against moving forward at that time.

After all, if the leader hesitates with me in a private coaching session, what willhappen when others, who know her better, call her on her level of commitmentto the focus?

Followers need to know just how committed a leader is to a declared focus. It’sone of the very first tests of leadership, and many leaders don’t make it.

Making a firm commitment has a single rule: ‘If you can’t make it, don’t fake it’.

Empathy

Effective leaders know how to listen empathically. They seek to understandbefore acting and by doing so they legitimize others’ input.

That’s not to say that they always promise to act on every piece of input theyreceive. They know that the vast majority of followers mainly want to be heard,to have a say in decision making, action taking and in shaping the changes thataffect them personally.

There is a saying regarding change ‘People may resist change for a variety ofreasons, but they will always resist BEING changed’. When leaders engage infocused dialogue, they promote consensus building, and as a consequencepeople feel less like change is being forced upon them. By coaching others to dothe same, leaders create a culture of inclusiveness.

But great leaders don't get bogged down in overly complicated or never-endingdialogue. They know when to 'fish or cut bait', and they communicate this at theoutset. They will say something like ‘We need to discuss this, reach a decisionand commit to a course of action by [date]’, which brings us on to the fifthfacet...

Timing

The single most critical facet is in knowing when to make critical decisions andtake appropriate actions in support of your focus, and when not to.

This applies throughout your organization. All of the other facets must beviewed as subservient to getting the timing of critical decisions and actionsright.

Some leaders like to think that creating a ‘sense of urgency’ is critical in order toovercome complacency. This may be so, but just remember that the opposite of

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complacency is chaos, which is no way to run a business, despite what thetheorists have to say on the matter.

By creating a sense of urgency, you may end up with bunches of people runningaround looking busy and acting out their own misdirected and misalignedversions of your strategy. As one leader I know put it ‘we went from sleepyhollow to an organization that had teams for everything, all engaged in an orgyof misdirected problem solving and ‘innovations’ that had little or no focusedimpact.’

The truth is that timing is vitally important…sometimes there is a need to holdoff on critical decisions or actions, and sometimes there is a need to act fast.Knowing the difference is absolutely critical to successfully executing yourfocus.

Get the timing wrong on critical decisions and everything else is nullified.

Great leaders move with appropriate speed. They don't believe that everythingmust be done immediately...they know how to prioritize, and how to get theirteam to prioritize.

As well, they engage in timely follow-through to ensure actions that arecommitted to happen in a well-coordinated and timely way.

Take the FACET Leadership Model Self-Test

These facets of high performance leadership are not exhaustive. Just as onewould look at the facets of a diamond, upon closer observation other facetsbecome observable.

Any person can aspire to being a great leader by working on these facets. At theend of each chapter in this book is a set of questions pertaining to the facetcovered in the chapter. Asking yourself these questions will allow you to reflecton your leadership style, and will provide greater insight into how you canimprove as a leader.

If you are in a leadership role, regardless of your position in your organization,start by asking yourself the following key questions:

How focused am I?

How much of my time do I spend communicating and inspiring people aboutour mission, vision, values or strategic goals?

How much focus do I create in my organization?

How married am I/my organization to methods that have outlived theirusefulness, that do not support the focus?

Am I viewed as authentic?

Do people see and hear the real me?

Do I wear a mask at work, and remove it when I leave each evening?

When I commit to something, do I always keep that commitment?

How high is my ‘integrity quotient?’

How courageous am I?

Do I have the courage to stand my ground when my focus and values arechallenged?

Do I stand firm, and only change my position when I know that I am wrong?

How well do I communicate what’s not negotiable (the focus) and what is (howto achieve the focus)?

How empathetic am I?

Do I show too much/too little empathy?

Do I create enough opportunities for open and candid dialogue?

Do I ever find myself getting bogged down in consensus building, or achievingfalse consensus?

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Is there a feeling of inclusiveness amongst the members of my immediate team,my organization, and with other stakeholders, including customers?

Do I make and execute decisions in a timely fashion?

Do I know when to 'fish or cut bait?'

Do I demand well-coordinated and timely execution of strategy from others?

Do I follow-up regularly?

Asking these questions in a candid way will open up many possibilities for youand your organization...if you have the courage to do it.

As you make your way through this book, keep in mind that your diligentattendance to these five facets is what will distinguish you as a great leader inthe true sense of the word…it will present to you many opportunities todevelop and share your leadership skills, but only if you are prepared to makethe effort.

CCHHAAPPTTEERR 11:: TTHHEE PPOOWWEERR OOFF FFOOCCUUSS“Be like a postage stamp. Stick to one thing until you get there” - Mary Carty

Focus of this chapter: Developing the ability to be focused on creating anoutcome that matters and will endure, describing it clearly and unambiguously,and assessing your readiness to move forward with it.

One BIG idea that endures

A leader without a clear focus to offer can have no true followers…what wouldthey follow? They might follow the person because he or she is ‘charismatic’,but we all know that this type of ‘pop idol’ followership simply does not endure.

On the other hand, history has provided us with examples of leaders who havepursued a BIG idea and have had no problem in recruiting dedicated people totheir cause.

Think of President John F. Kennedy, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, RosaParks, Jack Welch of GE, Walt Disney, Sam Walton, Fred Smith of Fed-Ex.

They all had BIG ideas.

It might be argued that many of these had a personal charisma, but in the finalanalysis it is their BIG ideas that they are remembered most for.

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While they all had crises to overcome from time to time, they did not believethat overcoming a crisis was enough of a legacy to leave behind, or that it wasnecessarily the mark of a good leader.

What do I mean by a BIG idea? The following are some noteworthy examples:

John F. Kennedy

Gandhi

Nelson Mandela

Rosa Parks

Jack Welch (GE)

Walt Disney

Sam Walton

(Wal-Mart)

Fred Smith (Fed-Ex)

A man on the moon by the end of the decade

Peaceful opposition

An end to apartheid

“No” (her simple refusal to give up her seat on abus to a white man)

Be #1 or #2 in each of our business sectors

Make people happy

Everyday low prices

Overnight parcel delivery

BIG ideas? You bet! Crystal clear? That too!

These are what I call ‘The Great Attractors’ – ideas or stances that are socompelling that the leader becomes obsessed with achieving them, andfollowers find such meaning in them that they simply wouldn’t want to beanywhere else but behind the leader and be part of something BIG.

How clear and compelling are your ideas?

Here’s a short exercise:

Try to distil your focus (it could be your vision, mission, values, corephilosophy, or strategy) into a shorter statement.

Use the “Rule of 7, plus or minus 2”, i.e. the statement must contain noless than FIVE words and no more than NINE.

Play with it for a while; fine-tune it until you come up with somethingthat is a ‘great attractor’.

Now, how does your focus stack up against the leaders’ focus listed earlier?

It does not have to be as grand as theirs, but it should hold up well against thefollowing criteria:

• Does it describe what you want to create?

• Can you be crystal clear about it?

• Are you truly committed to it?

• Is it a significant departure from ‘business as usual’?

• Will it be inspiring for you and others?

You will have the opportunity to conduct a more in-depth self-assessment ofyour focus at the end of this chapter, but for now just work with the criteriaabove.

Don’t worry if it may seem to others to be unachievable. BIG people, i.e. onesthat are larger than life are attracted to BIG ideas and then they make themhappen.

Attract to your ideas only those who want to share in the challenge and theadventure. Attract big thinkers and big doers.

The leaders mentioned above had their detractors, and they also knew that theywere not involved in a popularity contest.

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You too will have your detractors. Don’t let them mess with your BIG idea. Ifyou do you will lose focus and then very quickly lose followers.

One BIG Crisis does not make a leader

So now you’re at a point where you have developed a clear and inspiring focusthat you are truly committed to.

But the world does not owe you anything, and sometimes it has a strange wayof reminding you of that.

When President John F. Kennedy entered office he had a thin margin ofsupport over Richard Nixon. His popularity however rose dramatically when hewas able to focus his county’s attention on his one BIG idea: “We will have aman on the moon before the end of this decade”, even though he wasn’taround to see it come through.

His followership also grew when he had to deal with his one BIG crisis, theCuban missile threat.

Most leaders who have gone into the annals of history, whether it is politics,sports or business have led in this fashion: they have had at least one BIG ideato pursue plus one BIG crisis to manage, and they pursued the former astenaciously as they fought to overcome the latter.

In a business context, Jack Welch, retired Chair and CEO of GE, rose toprominence because he had more than one BIG idea, and more than his shareof BIG crises to deal with.

In the early 1980’s when he took the helm at GE, the mood inside the companywas one of complacency.

But Welch never bought in to that complacency. He had different ideas…BIGideas, and he had the courage and energy to pursue them. His first BIG idea wasto focus his managers’ attention on being the #1 or #2 in their respectivebusiness sectors.

And he and his team have never let go of that idea.

If they could not be #1 or #2, then they were forced to make tough decisions,which they did.

His one BIG crisis was to overcome complacency, bureaucracy and a bloatedorganizational hierarchy.

Initially, not everyone shared his view that this was a crisis. After all, GE was anestablished, successful, ‘mature’ company.

He nevertheless showed relentless determination and courage in removinglayers of bureaucracy and overcoming complacency.

During the 1980’s, he reduced the workforce from 404,000 to 229,000…hebecame known as ‘Neutron Jack’.

If anyone thought that there wasn’t a crisis, they were soon relieved of thatillusion.

And he wasn’t an outside manager parachuted in to ‘do a turnaround’. He was atwenty-year ‘veteran’, having joined GE in 1960.

For those that remained, the BIG idea, being #1 or #2 in their respectivesector, took on a whole new importance.

By dealing squarely with a crisis, he further reinforced his authenticity andcourage before he established his focus.

Since then his other BIG ideas, all successfully pursued, included a major movetowards globalization, a substantial increase in high tech services and of coursethe now famous bottom line approach to Six Sigma Quality.

GE grew from $25 billion in sales and $1.5 billion profits in 1980 to $110 billionrevenues and close to $10 billion in profits in 1999.

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That’s what a clear focus did for them.

There are many other examples of successful leaders who had BIG ideas ANDhad to manage through BIG crises, e.g. Bill Gates (love him or hate him!)

But think also of those leaders who were successful when a BIG crisis loomed,only to falter afterwards because they did not have or could not execute a BIGidea, e.g. Winston Churchill, George Bush Snr., and Jimmy Carter.

What motivates people to follow a leader?

Some people are drawn to lofty visions, a BIG idea, while some people aremotivated to take action only when there is a ‘real and present danger’, a BIGcrisis.

How can you get both types on your side?

Don’t just identify what motivates them, but also identify their direction ofmotivation, then FOCUS your message accordingly.

What do I mean by direction of motivation?

A person drawn to your big idea can be said to have a ‘towards’ motivation,whereas a person motivated by a big crisis can be said to have an ‘away from’motivation.

If you can have BOTH motivations working at once, then you have a powerfuldriver of actions.

We all are motivated in these two directions depending on the circumstances,but most of us have a particular preference or bias for one direction over theother.

People with a bias for a ‘towards’ motivation tend to be the dreamers andinnovators, while those with a bias for an ‘away from’ motivation tend to begood problem solvers.

You need both types on your side.

Let’s say that your chosen focus, your big idea, is for your organization to be anacknowledged centre of excellence in your industry.

Those with a ‘towards motivation’ will be motivated by what achieving that goalwill do for them. For example, being a contributing member of a center ofexcellence will bring personal and professional recognition, perhaps evenincreasing their own market worth as well as that of the organization.

Those with an ‘away from’ motivation will be motivated by a message thatclearly articulates what will happen if the FOCUS is NOT achieved…perhaps itwill mean a reduction in their market worth, or even downsizing and layoffs.

In both cases, in order for motivation to occur, the consequences are bestspoken about as if they were already happening, using the present tense.

The consequences (what will achieving this focus do for us, and what will NOTachieving this focus do to us?) must be believable and credible.

In the next chapter we will deal with the subject of Authenticity, which dealswith this in much more detail.

For now, keep in mind that your commitment to your FOCUS needs to beborn out of a strong belief in the consequences that you will be articulating.

If you have difficulty believing what these consequences are, then you need togo back to the drawing board and come up with a new or revised focus.

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Tips for creating a clear focus

Let’s get even clearer about ‘focus’. A clear focus is:

A Central Theme

First of all, a focus is your central theme.

In time, you may move your focus to something else, but only after your initialfocus is achieved and imbedded in the culture of your organization.

When that happens, people will be able to tune in to other things to focus on inaddition to the initial focus. In other words, they will develop the ability overtime to have multiple focal points.

But start with a single, overarching focus. This has to be absolutely central tothe success of your organization.

Komatsu adopted a central theme when they decided to take on Caterpillar, acompany many times their size. They adopted the phrase “Circle C”, the Cstanding for Caterpillar. No doubts about where they set their sights!

GE adopted a focus of being #1 or #2 in each business sector that they werein, and they were relentless about pursuing it.

An Enduring End Result

In all of the examples given, the focus was on the desired end result. And thatresult endures…it’s not a once off goal.

It lays the foundation for even greater achievements into the future. Also, at thetime each focus was established, there was no discussion on means, timelines,resources, and barriers.

These ‘details’ would be left open in order to attract others to join in, discussthem, establish an emotional connection with them, and always allowing asmuch room for creativity and innovation as possible.

Leaving this amount of space for people is one of the key ingredients that makeeach focus a ‘great attractor’.

Neither was there any reference to the advisability or do-ability of the focus.

This cuts right across the textbook advice often given in business schoolsaround adopting goals that are ‘SMART’ (specific, measurable, achievable,realistic, time-lined) – the focus of our leaders above was on ‘specific andmeasurable’…they left the details, the ‘how’, to others, while they stayed loyal tothe focus, the ‘what’.

In many cases the leaders were viewed as ‘out to lunch’, even out of step with‘what the market wants’, out of touch with ‘reality’.

But they succeeded.

They had an iron will and a relentless FOCUS on the end result.

A Call to Action

Leaders who have such an overarching goal, a central theme, also focus peopleon taking action.

They start by taking action themselves.

Jack Welch of GE took action in the 1980’s when he had to scale down hisorganization and remove layers of bureaucracy. He knew that if he didn’t hewould fail, and failure on such a grand scale was not on his leadership agenda.

He didn’t stop there either. He took the slimmed down organization, refocusedit and gave it a ‘workout’ to get it fit to do battle. He called it the GEWorkout™ - and it was the foundation for GE becoming a team based,continuous improvement powerhouse.

A New, Much Higher Standard

‘It can’t be done!’ comes the rebuttal as the leader announces her new focus.

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‘Why not?’ the leader replies.

‘Because, no one else has ever attempted it, we don’t have the capacity, themarket won’t take to it, we’re bleeding red ink, the unions will go on a rampage,we already have a focus: survival!’

‘But…’ said the leader, ‘we’re going to do it – so lead, follow or get out of theway!’

New, much higher standards call for dramatic change.

Change calls for actions on a number of fronts:

STOP doing something we have always done,

START doing something new (that we may not have a clue about…yet),

IMPROVE something that we are currently doing, but need to do dramaticallybetter.

This stop-start-improve approach is unsettling for many people...except thosewho are attracted to BIG ideas, for these are your champions of change – theones who will work long hours and dedicate themselves to making it happen.

Use these champions as examples of the new higher standard.

But don’t stop there.

Promote them, encourage them, train them, coach them, reward them andrecognize them.

If you don’t, they will up and leave, and you will have to rely on the detractorsand fence sitters.

And then your attempts at change will feel like trying to bowl uphill in thesnow.

You will fail.

Some of the detractors and fence sitters may come over and becomechampions, but it will take a while and there are no guarantees.

Some will leave the organization because the challenge will be just too much forthem, or it’s not what they originally signed up for.

And some you will just have to fire.

On the following pages we have included a self-assessment questionnaire thatwill enable you to test your focus.

To answer some of these questions you will have to send out some ‘trialballoons’, to test out your focus with others. Do that first, but don’t overdo it.

Modify the questionnaire to suit your needs. There are 17 questions in total,with a highest possible score of 85.

Anywhere between 68 and 85 is regarded as high, and means that you areprobably ready to move forward with conviction.

But don’t just use the score to make your decision…move forward only whenYOU feel ready.

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Self-Assessment: Do you have an inspiring FOCUS?

By now, you should have a good feel for what your ‘focus’ is all about. It’s reallyquite simple. But it’s not easy. That’s what makes focused leadership sopowerful – not all leaders achieve it. When you do, you will stand out from thecrowd. In that crowd, many leaders allow themselves to be distracted, evenallowing others to plant seeds of doubt in the minds of followers. Don’t let thishappen to you. To help you with that, here are some self-test questions that youcan use in addition to the main criteria used earlier:

First, describe your focus (remember the Rule of 7, plus or minus 2):

My FOCUS (Use the present tense):

Describe the ‘towards’ motivators (i.e. consequences that will occur as theFOCUS is achieved). Use the present tense:

Describe the ‘away from’ motivators (i.e. consequences that will occur if theFOCUS is NOT achieved). Use the present tense:

Rate Your FOCUS

Now, rate your focus using the following five-point scale:

1 = Strongly Disagree

2 = Disagree

3 = Neither Agree nor Disagree

4 = Agree

5 = Strongly Agree

Question Score

1. My FOCUS is clear and unambiguous

2. My FOCUS is specific and measurable

3. My FOCUS is central to the success of my organization

4. My FOCUS excites me

5. My FOCUS gets me out of bed in the morning

6. My FOCUS sometimes keeps me awake at night

7. My FOCUS sometimes scares me

8. I have the ENERGY to see it through

9. I am willing to STAKE my career and reputation on it

10. My FOCUS excites other key players

11. These other key players have the ENERGY to see it through

12. My FOCUS gets a negative reaction from some people

13. My FOCUS will endure & form a foundation for greater thingsto follow

14. My FOCUS sets a new, much higher standard

15. My FOCUS includes a call to action

16. I can describe the CONSEQUENCES of achieving it

17. I can describe the CONSEQUENCES of NOT achieving it

Total Score:

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Total the score you have awarded to your FOCUS. A score below 51 meansthat your FOCUS requires major rework; a score between 51 and 68 means thatyour FOCUS could do with some refining; a score above 68 means that you areprobably ready to move forward.

• Keep in mind that a high score does not mean that your FOCUS isflawless. Some points may still need some work. Review your notesas well as your score!

• Revise your FOCUS if necessary and adjust your rating.

• Make a decision…are you ready to move forward with it?

• This is not a ‘scientific’ process. People tend to respond to a focusemotionally, which pure science has great difficulty in dealing with.

• Refine the above questions, even add your own.

• Ask other key players to ‘take the test’ and discuss the results with you.

• Use dialogue to refine your focus…but always, always remember thatit is your focus.

If someone else were in your leadership position, they would come up with theirown focus, which no doubt would be different than yours.

Think of your focus as your leadership legacy…something BIG and excitingthat you successfully lead people towards, and which bears your hallmark.

Make it matter.

A final note on FOCUS

One of the determining factors that separate high performance leadership fromall other calibre of leadership is the ability of the leader to focus attention, theirown and others, not just on dealing effectively with BIG crises, but on creatingand executing BIG ideas that will move their organizations, their communities,their industries (and even the entire world) forward.

The latter is what eventually stirs people to action, or as Jack Welch so aptly putit:

“With leadership the question at the beginning and at the end of the day is, ‘How far can wetake this…how big can we grow it…and how fast can we get there?’”

Will people question your focus? Sure they will. This brings us on to the nextchapter…

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CCHHAAPPTTEERR 22:: AAUUTTHHEENNTTIICC LLEEAADDEERRSSHHIIPP“Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken” – James Joyce

Focus of this chapter: To develop the ability to be yourself at all times; toavoid wearing a mask; to talk about your feelings in a given situation; to avoidmanipulative behavior and so build trust with those around you; to encourageothers to take the same risk and reveal their authentic selves.

Showing the real you

So, you have developed a powerful and inspiring focus. Even though it may notexactly meet all the criteria covered earlier, you still feel strongly enough about itto move forward.

Congratulations!

With the rollout of your focus, your integrity is now on the line. There is noturning back. In your darkest moments you will sometimes admit to yourselfthat you must be crazy, including those times when even your staunchestbackers will seem to doubt your sanity.

This is when you must draw upon your greatest asset – yourself.

To do that you must know yourself – intimately. No ‘mirror, mirror on the wall’here. No ego trips. Know your strengths and your limitations.

If you cannot be open and candid with yourself, it will show through withothers and you run the risk of being perceived as inauthentic, even a fake.

So what is authenticity?

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It’s about understanding enough about yourself to be able to step forward withconfidence and say things like:

• “I know what I’m good at and what I’m not so good at. I will build onmy strengths and shore up my weaknesses”

• “I will surround myself with people who are good, really good at what Ineither have the time for or the ability to do myself”

• “I will build a truly diversified team who can get the job done, who canachieve the focus”

• “When I mess up I will ‘fess up. I will forgive myself and move on. Iwill do the same with other committed team players”

• “I recognize that when I trip up and fall, it’s because I am moving, andthat without movement there can be no progress”

• “I will be myself at all times. I will not wear a mask”

• “I will deal with issues in a way that acknowledges how I truly feelabout the situation. I will not skirt an issue in order to curry favoror look good”

• “I will avoid engaging in manipulative behaviors and face reality. I willdemand the same of everyone else that I work with…I will set theexample”

This is a tall order for most of us. But in order for people to follow you it isabsolutely critical for them to see you as you are, to believe in you, to trust inyou.

The leader’s inner journey

Recommended Reading

In his bestselling book Synchronicity – The Inner Path of Leadership, author and leaderJoseph Jaworski describes his personal journey from being a highly successful, top notchattorney, through a period of inner reflection, doubt and confusion, to ultimately a discovery ofhis real self and his true focus, which is creating leaders at all levels in the community,something he was not trained for in his twenty years as an attorney.

His story is one of remarkable courage and personal change, but above all it’s a story ofsomeone in a search to discover his authentic self. During his journey he encountered manyfacets of himself that were not very attractive…he faced many monsters and overcame them. Healso managed somehow to attract to his BIG idea some of the greatest experts on leadership,who created a curriculum for The American Leadership Forum, a non-governmental agency hefounded, with the purpose of developing collaborative leadership to deal with urban andregional problems in the United States.

The Forum has based its work on eight propositions concerning leadership. The very firstproposition is stated as:

‘The trouble with American leaders is their lack of self-knowledge’, - which reflects Jaworski’sown journey.

How can you achieve greater self-knowledge?

One of the greatest capacities we possess as humans is our ability to deceiveourselves. We learn this very early in life as we compete for our parents’attention, and the attention of other adults in our lives who hold tremendouspower over us.

We learn that to show signs of weakness in the presence of people with powermight not be a very smart move.

We form the perception that powerful people admire and support otherpowerful people, and therefore we try to become one, or at least form an imageof ourselves as powerful. We do this in school, on the sports field, inextracurricular activities, in our hobbies, at home and at work.

We tend to pay less outward attention to our weaknesses and more to ourstrengths. But inside many of us is a nagging voice that, from time to time,reminds us of our human weaknesses.

Some people even grow up with ‘imposter’ personalities…they continually tryto show an image to the outside world of someone who is always in control,confident and powerful. On the inside however they may have serious feelingsof weakness and insecurity.

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There are many self-help tools available for discovering our true selves, and theymake an excellent starting point for leaders who understand the value of self-discovery.

Help others become leaders too

Recommended Reading

In their book “Leading with Soul”, authors Bolman and Deal describe the journey of Steve, abeleaguered executive and his quest for passion and purpose in work and in life. Steve consultswith his mentor, and through a series of meetings with her, discovers some things about himself.He struggles with the question that his people do not feel a sense of authorship for their work,even though he felt he was technically good at delegation and follow-up.

Many leaders unwittingly disempower people. Not knowing their authentic self,warts and all, they launch into an empowerment program, with the express aimof creating ‘empowered leaders at every level in our organization’.

The only problem is that the newly empowered people are minted in the imageand likeness of their leader, insecurities and all.

The result is an imperfect attempt at cloning other people as leaders, who endup continually looking over their shoulders and wondering ‘how the boss mightdo it’…no authorship, just failed attempts at plagiarism.

If you want to get the most authentic effort from people, let them truly be theauthors and designers, without interference from you.

Allow them to be their authentic selves, not a fake you.

To do this, you need to lead by example by being authentic yourself.

Being authentic means letting go

One leader I worked with, when asked by a group of his followers for his inputon a proposed process improvement replied: ‘My ideas on this are all flawed,but my need for control is encouraging me to interfere nonetheless. So I’ll parkmy ego, and zip my lip. You guys have this cornered…I trust your wisdom andjudgment and I won’t second-guess you’.

This came from a leader who had a reputation for interfering and second-guessing.

The result was astonishing.

The team working on the process improvement stopped looking over theircollective shoulders, released their creativity and produced a processimprovement that was nothing short of astounding.

In truth, this leader had been going through a personal transformation for sometime, and the group had recognized it. In fact the leader would openly discusshis attempts at self-discovery and authenticity during weekly managementmeetings.

The event was a watershed for the leader and the group, one that they talkedabout for some time after. The group was not about to let their newfoundauthorship slip out of their grasp!

When you establish your focus, how much authorship are you going to allowyour team in putting the pieces in place to achieve it?

When we truly author something we take ownership. We feel responsible. Wefeel proud of our effort and accomplishment. Our minds are engaged, ourhands are kept busy, our hearts are aroused and our spirit is revived.

When this happens there is less need for such things as ‘accountabilitycontracts’, ‘360 feedback’ or other instruments of control that masquerade asexercises in human resource development. Development simply happensnaturally when you let go.

Being authentic has a synergistic effect

The renowned quality guru Joseph M. Juran defined management as the practiceof controlling and improving things. The sad fact of the matter is that manyleaders have made the mistake of trying to apply that to people. If you want tomanage a person, try ‘managing’ yourself. When you see how difficult that is,imagine the outcome when you try to control and improve someone else. Leadpeople…manage things.

Where people are concerned, if there is anything to manage, it is therelationship between you and them.

Focus on that.

Set goals for that.

Control what YOU do in the relationship. Improve the relationship.

Nothing else will work.

Try to ‘manage’ a person and you will achieve one of three outcomes - they willrevolt, comply or just plain ignore you. Mediocre performance will be the result,and you will be left wondering why people ‘resist change’, when the truth of thematter is that people don’t resist change so much as they resist being changed.

So if switching the emphasis from managing people to managing relationships iskey, what has authenticity got to do with it? The bottom line on this is thatpeople generally seek to develop relationships with other people whom they feelthey can trust, and the whole basis for trust is authenticity. You wouldn’t wantto develop a relationship with someone you thought of as being a fake, wouldyou?

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Think of this as a reinforcing loop (see Fig 1). More authenticity leads to ahigher degree of mutual trust, which empowers relationships and fuels thedesire to take risks and inspires people to be the author of something BIG, (“Imight fail, but that’s okay because there’s a lot of forgiveness in thisrelationship”).

This produces more personal and organizational successes, which in turnreinforces authenticity.

Mutual Trust at Nissan

Carlos Ghosn (rhymes with phone) is a comic book hero in Japan. He is the starof “Big Comic Superior”, a serious biweekly Japanese comic book that begantelling his life story in the latter half of 2001.

Ghosn, born in Brazil, raised in Lebanon and a French citizen, came to Nissanin 1999 to head up a turnaround. At that time Nissan was deep in debt, andmany observers doubted if an outsider could do much to rescue the troubledautomaker.

But Ghosn had different plans, specifically a three-year plan announced inOctober 1999, aimed at a revival of the Japanese firm. By January 2002, healready exceeded the three-year goals outlined in the plan. This was good newsfor him, because he promised to resign if the goals were not achieved.

His focus was clear, as he tells it in his own words:

“Our industry, and this is very important, is about products. This is extremely important.Anytime any car manufacturer has deviated from this, at the beginning there was some hype,but at the end a lot of sorrow”

Despite having to achieve a turnaround, he never lost sight of the need toinvolve people. He knew enough about his own limitations to know that theturnaround needed a solid team effort and to achieve that goal required a veryhigh degree of mutual trust.

He credits the success of the Nissan Revival Plan to one element:

“From the beginning, I was convinced that the main key to success is you establish trust withyour employees and try to make sure they are motivated for what they are doing. This is themost important element. If you have this, if your people are fired up about the plan, even if it isdifficult, if they believe it is going to be successful, if they trust you, you can do anything. You’regoing to be successful, no doubt about it.”

And his plan was not without pain. He had to cut more than 21,000 jobs to stayafloat, including the closure of five plants.

But he didn’t just deal with the crisis…the other part of his plan was toreinvigorate Nissan’s product lineup, including spending on new productdevelopment representing five percent of sales, up from 3.5 percent.

A big crisis followed by a big idea. Not bad for a comic book hero.

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Tips for discovering your true self

In discovering your true self, consider the following tips as you embark on yourjourney:

Spend more time with yourself.

Remember the last time when you wanted to get to know someone better?Maybe it was your spouse, sweetheart, child or parent. The only way that youcould get to know them better was to spend more time with them. Do this foryourself as well.

Find solitude, escape to a place where you can be alone, without interruptions.

Ask yourself searching questions, but be kind and considerate to yourself in theprocess. Show yourself the same kindness and consideration you would show toothers in getting to know them. Be your own best friend.

Explore all aspects of yourself, especially things about yourself that you mayhave put on the back burner or have given the least amount of attention to inthe past.

Face the future…let go of the past.

Avoid glib questions such as “If I had only six months to live…” when inreality this is not the case. If you expect to live for another ten, twenty, thirty,forty years, think what you could achieve in that timeframe!

Time is a resource…use your time spent alone to plan what you will do with therest of your time. You can’t change the past, and the best way of letting go ofthe past is to grab hold of the future and start living it now!

Learn how to trust yourself.

In your discussions with yourself, stop berating yourself for past wrongs,imperfections and for being human. When you beat up on yourself, you erodethe trust that needs to exist with your inner self.

Would you trust someone who keeps beating you up emotionally every time youhave a conversation? No, of course not! So don’t do it to yourself. If you can’ttrust yourself, how can you expect others to trust you?

When you do trust yourself, your conversations will become much more candid,honest, considerate and kind…just as they would be with your best and mosttrusted friend.

Seek feedback from those who know you.

Ask for candid feedback, but do not let it define you. Each person who givesyou feedback has a unique perspective about you…but it is just that…unique.

You are a complex human being, which no other human being, apart fromyourself, will ever fully know.

Add the feedback to the information about yourself that you gather from othersources, and understand how the world sees you.

Find a coach or mentor, someone who is not heavily involved in your life andwho is not related to you. A coach or mentor can help you develop and answerthe important questions that matter only to you.

Professional coaches have a Human Resources and/or professional coachingaccreditation, coupled with experience to make a difference. Find one you feelyou can trust, not necessarily one you are ‘cosy’ with.

Use but avoid too much reliance on standardized tests and assessments (e.g.DiSC, MBTI, and other personality type assessments). While these aredefinitely helpful, they have been developed with broad application in mind.Keep in mind that you are unique, and try not to ‘label’ yourself or yourpersonality.

Treat self-discovery as a lifelong journey

We are constantly changing, and need to continuously update our ‘body ofknowledge’ about ourselves.

Plan to have at least a once a year getaway where you can be by yourself forconsiderable periods of time, to reflect on who you are, what you have, whatyou’ve achieved and where you’re headed.

Don’t limit yourself to these tips…neither are they ‘steps’ to be worked on insequence. Adapt them to your purpose, add what you feel will work for you,seek out other resources, but don’t delay.

Let go

It’s easier than you think. Let go of the disabling belief that you need to controlpeople and what they do.

Control is an illusion. People will always find ways to circumvent or overcomethe artificial controls we put in place that box them in and suffocate their spirit.

By letting go of the need to control and manipulate, you release a great energy.This energy will attract to you those people who share in your focus, yourvision, your purpose.

It has been said that the role of a leader is to find out what people really want,to gracefully articulate it, and then to help them obtain it. If your focus is trulyinspiring and leads people to a higher purpose in life, then you cannot help butsucceed. This requires great honesty and transparency from you...and it beginswith being honest with yourself.

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Summary of Key Questions

Now take another look at your FOCUS that you worked on in the first chapter.

Is this really you? Does it articulate what you believe people want, that serves ahigher purpose? Does it serve your higher purpose in life?

When I coach managers, I ask them to articulate their vision or purpose. Whenthey do, I ask “What will having that do for you?” When they give me ananswer, I ask the same question again “…and what will having THAT do foryou?”

I keep asking it until I hit a nerve. Here’s an example…

BW: What is your vision for (organization)

Manager: To be the best quality, lowest cost producer in our industry

BW: What will having that do for you?

Manager: Maximize market share and profitability

BW: …and what will having THAT do for you?

Manager: Provide security for our employees and an above average return forour investors

BW: …and what will having THAT do for you?

Manager: (getting a little bit peeved): I guess that’s it

BW: Is that all?

Manager: (smiling) They’re not bad outcomes!

BW: Is that how you want to be remembered when you’ve passed out of thislife?

Manager: (looking puzzled) I thought that your questions were focused on thebusiness outcomes?

BW: Maybe we need to change the FOCUS?

Manager: (still looking puzzled) What do you mean?

BW: What is YOUR vision or purpose? What you told me is almost aboilerplate reply that 95% of managers give me. Hardly unique…hardlycompelling. If I were one of your employees or customers, I wouldn’t be at allimpressed. I could go to work for one of your competitors, or as a customerbuy from them, and follow the same vision. If you attract people to a boilerplatevision, they will be boilerplate followers.

Manager: I think I’m beginning to get your drift…

Then follows a longer discussion on the meaning of personal vision or purpose.At a certain point, the manager will come to the conclusion that vision orpurpose is highly individualized, highly personal.

Forget what you learned about business being ‘objective’, ‘fact based’ and‘impersonal’.

The truth is that we spend half (or more) of our waking hours in businesssituations, and we had therefore better make it personal, otherwise we risk beinginauthentic…having our real selves and our business selves as two separateentities.

Recommended Reading

In their bestselling book, Built to Last, authors James Collins and Jerry Porras make a realdistinction between the two types of organizations that were the subject of their extensiveinvestigations into what makes companies last. They describe one set as ‘clock builders’ and theother as ‘time tellers’. In other words, the ‘clock builders’ personal visions were to build greatcompanies that would survive and thrive, have a positive impact on the world, and outlive theirfounders (that was their BIG idea), whereas the ‘time tellers’ were mostly interested in whatthey could extract from their companies in terms of profits, ROI, etc.

So if your BIG idea does not contribute to building a ‘better clock’, i.e. acompany built on lasting values, that serves a higher purpose, how long will itlast after you are gone?

Does your BIG idea have your hallmark stamped on it, does it express theunique and authentic you?

Will it outlive you? Only you can judge this.

Being authentic does not mean being perfect, being whiter than the drivensnow. In fact, as you exhibit more and more of your true self, followers may atfirst think that you have gone too far, that you have exposed too manyvulnerabilities.

Will some people take advantage of that? Probably. But the alternative, beingsecretive and manipulative, is far too big a price to pay in order to avoid thehurt of being betrayed by some.

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Being authentic, as discussed earlier, unlocks energies and creates synergies thatwould otherwise have been wasted on other pursuits.

Make use of this energy.

Use it to create an ever-widening groundswell of support for your focus. Thisgroundswell will eventually overwhelm any attempts to exploit your very humanvulnerabilities, or the vulnerabilities of those around you.

Authenticity reveals itself in a renewed commitment to the achievement ofsomething worthwhile. People around you will see it, feel it and hear it…and soyour own commitment will be reinforced and gain strength.

You will literally gain strength from those around you, and they from you.

The questions that you need to ask yourself concerning your authenticity arepersonal and unique to you. Unlike the questions that we asked at the end of theprevious chapter on focus, there are no ‘standard’ questions to offer you here.

What I can offer is a guide to finding the questions that you need to exploreyourself, that matter most to you:

• As you examine your focus, think about its higher purpose (what willachieving your focus do for you, your followers, the communitiesyou serve, the industries you work in, the world at large?)

• Don’t be afraid to explore. When the ancient mariners took off on theirvoyages, their maps showed areas which read ‘There be dragons”,but it still didn’t stop them. Don’t let your personal dragons stopyou.

• Consider discovery of your weaknesses as an opportunity to strengthenyour team…find people to join your team who have these asstrengths.

• As you reveal your strengths and weaknesses to your followers, askthem to follow you on your journey towards self-discovery.

• Expect some initial resistance, and then as people get on board, expectsome profound discoveries and changes on their part.

• Understand that people will initially expect more of you in terms ofpersonal change than they will of themselves. This is natural asthere will be a time lag between your self-discovery and that ofmany others.

• Learn to talk sincerely about your feelings in given situations. This tellspeople more about the authentic you than any amount ofadvocating or proselytizing could ever do.

• Keep your word. Be careful therefore about what you commit to andbe specific about it.

• Admit when you are wrong, correct it and move on. More harm is doneto leaders’ reputations when they hide a wrong than there is whenthey admit to it. When you do admit a wrong, don’t dwell on it.

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A final note on AUTHENTICITY

Being authentic requires that we drop all masks and reveal our true selves. So ifall you have to lose is a mask, why not do it?

We become truly authentic when we develop a deep understanding of who weare as unique human beings, and what worthwhile purpose we’re pursuing.

This understanding brings joy into our lives and into the lives of others. Writerand playwright George Bernard Shaw put it rather bluntly when he said:

"This is the true joy in life -- being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one;the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force ofnature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that theworld will not devote itself to making you happy"

Nothing but the real you deserves success. Showing the real you requires, youguessed it, a ton of courage, which is the subject of our next chapter.

CCHHAAPPTTEERR 33:: TTHHEE PPOOWWEERR TTOO

LLEEAADD……TTHHEE CCOOUURRAAGGEE TTOO WWIINN“Have no fear of change as such, and on the other hand, no liking for it merely for its ownsake” – Robert Moses

Focus of this chapter: The courage to persistently challenge the status quo, totake calculated risks and to strive for breakthroughs, not just incrementalimprovements. Giving people enough time to deal with their losses beforemoving on to achieve the focus.

An odd thing about organizational change

When I talk with people about change, it never ceases to amaze me how muchthey seem to know about the changes that the other person or persons in theirlives need to embrace. Sometimes this is so cleverly disguised even I get drawnin…and I’ve been at this for over twenty-five years.

When people point the finger at others and spend time discussing how othersare resisting change, it demonstrates a distinct lack of self-awareness or self-knowledge on their part – and it scuttles more plans and great ideas along theway than most leaders will care to admit to.

What about that failed expensive computer system introduced last year, that ifonly those folks in marketing REALLY understood?

And what about that product or program launch that fizzled out – if only thosefolks in operations put their back behind it, things WOULD have beendifferent.

To avoid playing this blame game, which can wreck an organization, the answerfor you as a leader is to lead by personal example.

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An odd thing about organizational change…it really is personal.

Leading change

With your focus already communicated and hopefully understood, it’s now timeto work collaboratively with others to ‘make it happen’.

This means figuring out the myriad details that must fit together into a coherentplan of action…in fact many plans. It also means keeping options open for aslong as possible to allow for changing circumstances, and new opportunities.

It means, as a leader, that you are going to be challenged to ‘nail things down’(“What we need around here is more accountability…”) and at the same time,‘uproot things’ (“Why can’t our people be more innovative risk takers?”)

Achieving a delicate balance between these two distinctly different orientationsis challenging. As you grapple with this challenge, you must demand the same ofthe people who report to you.

And this is where it can get stressful. This is where leading by example will beyour best ally. You need to be able to manage your stress.

In a previous chapter, we talked about the STOP – START – IMPROVEapproach to leading change. In attempting to achieve your focus, you need toask the following key questions, and it will demand a great deal of courage,especially on your part, to find the answers:

STOP: Which existing lines of business, programs, products, services andprocesses do we need to discontinue or phase out because they no longersupport the focus?

The greatest challenge here will be disturbing the status quo. People who runthese programs have invested long hours, much sweat and a great deal ofthemselves in making them work.

They probably even have ‘new’ plans on the drawing board to improve orrevitalize them. They may even be passionate about them.

Expect the strongest resistance here. Emphasize the need to honor pastaccomplishments, give people sufficient time to mourn the losses they areexperiencing, to close the book on the past and then move on.

Keep in mind that it’s not just the people who are directly affected by thesechanges that you need to be concerned about, but other people in theorganization are also affected in a more subtle ‘it could be me next time’ way.

START: Which new lines of business, programs, products, services andprocesses do we need to introduce in order to achieve the focus?

What new competencies will we need to introduce in order to make these newinitiatives work?

What existing competencies will we need to transfer into these new initiatives?

This is the ‘glamorous’ side of change. Expect a lot of interest and competitionfor positions on project teams here.

Emphasize the need for innovation, and expect some failures.

Celebrate the successes…and personally lead these celebrations.

IMPROVE: Which existing lines of business, programs, products, services andprocesses do we need to dramatically improve, in order to achieve the focus?

Expect a lot of jockeying for favor here between those things that people wantto discontinue versus improve.

Sometimes the distinction is fuzzy…a fine line between what works and whatdoesn’t. Again, this disturbs the status quo.

To improve means a substantial improvement over a short period of time, notjust more of the same incremental improvements that perhaps have alreadybeen taking place…it means a new higher standard.

Watch out for competitiveness between this and the other two approaches.Some folks will want to escape to the more ‘glamorous’ project teams who arestarting out on a brand new journey, while still others will want to escape thepossibility of becoming a victim of a discontinued function.

So what do you, as a leader, do in these types of situations?

First, lead by personal example, as stated earlier. This means that you mustshow others how you are coping with the changes that you must personallyundertake in order to achieve the focus.

What are you personally doing in the STOP – START – IMPROVE trilogy?This can and should relate, at least in part, to your voyage of self-discoverydiscussed in the previous chapter. What personal behaviors are you trying tostop, start, or improve?

Maybe in the past you have been too autocratic in certain situations? Maybe youhave been too easily influenced, or have not held people accountable, or havenot practiced enough follow up? Maybe you have been slow to innovate?

This is where you can make your personal journey visible to all.

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Second, admit openly that you do not have all the answers…nor does anyoneelse…right now. While keeping people looking forward in the direction of thefocus, concentrate the dialogue on the many ways by which the focus can beachieved. Keep people looking forward and moving forward.

This is critical.

In today’s business world, you are ‘only as good as your last game’, to borrow asporting phrase.

Third, use the ‘towards’ AND ‘away from’ directions of motivation discussed inan earlier chapter to get peoples’ attention, to get them to truly understand theconsequences that await them, and to create an environment where people areself motivated. What will achieving the focus do for the organization; it’scustomers and suppliers; for the people who run it; for the community; for allstakeholders?

What will NOT achieving it mean for all these people?

Be explicit, and keep the consequences at the forefront.

Bear in mind, we are talking here about natural consequences, not contrivedones. These consequences represent what I call ‘an inescapable logic’, dictatedmostly by your external environment, not rewards and punishments that mightdisappear if you or someone else happens to have a change of heart. Do not usethese natural consequences as a threat, for it will be seen as coming from you,and not the external world.

Fourth, don’t back off from your focus, not even for a moment. When peoplesee a leader blink in the face of opposition, they can lose confidence veryquickly. When opposition arises, respect the right of the person or group tobring concerns to the surface, in fact encourage it, but demand that they bringsuggestions for solving the problem as well. Try to think of opposition as fallinginto three different categories, or types:

Type 1: The Test

Much of the opposition you experience will be a test to see if you arereally serious about your focus. Most people have been through changebefore, and believe they can distinguish between real change and a fad.Punch drunk veterans of previous waves of change even have a termfor fads: ‘BOHICA’ or “Bend Over Here It Comes Again”.

Type 2: Did I Hear You Right?

Some opposition will occur as a result of misunderstandings aboutwhat the focus stands for. As your message, succinct as it is travelsthroughout the organization, expect for it to be added to, deleted from,

modified, over emphasized, under emphasized, and generally takenapart and put back together many times. Use personal dialogue to clearup these misunderstandings. Give people space to air their views andto seek clarification. Be available.

Treat these first two types of ‘opposition’ as a blessing, as a way to talkopenly and candidly about previous experiences with change, and fordiscovering how people want change to be handled this time around.

But maintain your focus.

Type 3: I Didn’t Sign Up for This!

In a few cases, opposition will be real and permanent, based on afundamental clash of beliefs and values. This occurs mostly where thereis a fundamental shift in the mission of an organization, or where theorganization is attempting to go through a transformation. This iswhere very often a parting of the ways needs to happen. Sad as this is, itis better for the person(s), and for the organization, that this partinghappens as quickly and as humanely as possible.

Fifth, maintain and support the organizational values, especially in the face ofstiff opposition to change. If one of your stated values is respect for people,then show it openly, even if a person or group is not showing respect towardsyou.

Does this mean that you roll over for some people to trample on you? On thecontrary, you face the opposition on two fronts – one, you deal with themanner in which that opposition was demonstrated; and two, you deal with thesubstance of the opposition.

For example, if the opposition involves open aggression, then deal with theaggression as a flagrant flaunting of the organizational value of respect forothers. Be unflinching in that regard.

Then, deal with the substance of the opposition…it may still have merit. Butdon’t allow a person or group to flaunt organizational values, no matter howmuch substance or merit their opposition or point of view has.

These five actions are important, even critical. But you will find many otherways in which to advance towards your focus, all the time trying desperatelyhard not to be seen as secretive or manipulative. Holding firm to your focus,your values, your true self, you will be tested at every step along the way. Therewill be times when you will feel betrayed by some whom you’ve trustedimplicitly, for such is the fickleness of human nature.

On the other hand, you will be surprised by the lengths to which some peoplewill go to fight on your behalf, and at times it will appear as though you have anarmy of supporters working for your focus. This is as it should be.

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The courage to face reality

Courage. People know it when they see it. They also know what it is not. It isnot brashness, bravado, or being ‘macho’. It is not being pig-headed orobstinate. It is not about ‘storming the hill’. It is about facing reality…and this iswhere many leaders fail.

There are as many versions of ‘reality’ as there are people. When you announceyour focus, people immediately contrast it with reality…their own version of it.

Recommended Reading

Peter Senge, in his bestselling book, “The Fifth Discipline” describes these versions of realityas ‘mental models’, which we use to explain how we believe the world works, or should work.Surfacing peoples’ mental models is essential to understanding how people perceive the gap thatexists, in their view, between current and future realities…between what exists now and yourfuture focus.

If the gap appears too big, there will be resistance, or ‘tension’ as Sengedescribes it. Helping people deal with this tension in a creative way is the bestway to ease the tension, the only other way being to let go of or relax yourfocus.

Creativity therefore is the key to achieving the breakthroughs that you will needin order to advance towards your focus. And creativity takes courage, because itinvolves failure on a scale that most leaders and organizations find difficult ifnot impossible to stomach.

The courage to allow creativity to blossom

Our organizations and management systems are designed for control. Control isimportant, that goes without saying. Without control, we would not knowwhere we are on our journey. We would most likely lose our way.

But control what? As mentioned in a previous chapter, a key task of managingis to control and improve an organization’s mission critical processes, the onesthat produce value for its stakeholders.

These processes tend to be designed with control in mind. They represent theessential supply chain between what stakeholders want or need, and what theorganization produces…the link between demand and supply.

‘Colouring outside the lines’, ‘thinking outside the box’ are terms that arefrequently used to urge people to depart from this control oriented way ofthinking in order to generate and embrace new innovative ideas.

There is great danger here.

People will be afraid that not ‘doing it right the first time’, the mantra of thecontrol oriented organization, will prevail…that they will be punished somehowfor trying and failing on their first attempt. They might be right.

If your organization has compensation, rewards, recognition and yes, evendisciplinary systems that were designed with control and incrementalimprovement in mind, guess what?

That’s exactly what you will get...control and very, very slow incrementalimprovements.

With your new focus, there likely will be a major chasm between current realityand the future, and it’s extremely dangerous to leap a chasm in two or morebounds, which is what your organizational systems are probably designed to do.

So something has to give…

Enter ‘bottom line innovation’.

Although you may not see yourself as a great innovator, it does not mean thatyou cannot sponsor great innovations.

The key sponsorship role for you to play is to establish strong linkages betweenthe innovative ‘skunk works’ part of your organization (those responsible forthe innovative breakthrough designs) and the production minded, controloriented part (those responsible for getting the product out the door or forserving clients.)

The skunk works generate the new ideas, test them out, prove their worth andthen hand them over to the production side, who then control andincrementally improve the daily processes that bring the new ideas to themarketplace, reliably and predictably.

This does not mean that both sides work in isolation, with a wall dividing them.On the contrary, people pass between these organizations on a regular basis,both formally and informally. Constructive dialogue, cross-functional teamwork,and concurrent design are all ways that organizations are now fulfilling this needto marry innovation with quality minded production and service delivery.

You will be spending a good deal of your time in both environments, leading byexample, showing how it is possible to embrace the new, while holding on towhat’s best about the old, praising new product and service innovations ANDflawless delivery in the same way and to the same degree.

The SOP Factor

In the production and service delivery part of organizations the acronym S.O.P.stands for ‘Standard Operating Procedure’, emphasizing the need for quality,reliability and predictability; while in the skunk works part it stands for ‘Seat Ofthe Pants’, emphasizing the need for experimentation and risk taking.

The leadership style you need to apply will differ depending on which part ofthe organization you are interacting with. The feedback and reinforcement for

50

one side will emphasize ‘out of bounds’ thinking and acting, while the other sidewill emphasize keeping things ‘within bounds’.

Geoffrey Ballard thought he could change the world, at a time when othersthought he was crazy. Ballard, a Canadian geophysicist who had directed labresearch for the U. S. Army and headed up an energy conservation program forthe U. S. Department of Energy, was adamant that his ideas on hydrogen fuelcell technology could produce a viable and cleaner alternative to fossil fuels, andthat the future of transportation was in electric powered vehicles based on thistechnology.

So, in the mid seventies in the searing heat of Arizona, Ballard and a fewassociates set about their work, working on shoestring budgets and with a focusthat was unrelenting. Their company went bankrupt at one point, but that didnot deter them. Moving to North Vancouver in British Columbia in 1983 andworking on a small contract for the Canadian military, they set about improvingupon the fuel cell originally developed by GE and abandoned by them becauseof cost, and worked long hours to find ways to improve its power and reduce itscost.

In 1986, at Los Alamos Laboratories in New Mexico, they were able to unveiltheir work…and the world started at last to pay attention. Ballard Systems builtfuel cell transit buses, allowing the cities of Chicago and Vancouver to carrypassengers in environmentally efficient and friendly vehicles for a number ofyears now.

Investment dollars began to flow, and by the mid to late 1990’s the major automanufacturers began to sign on. DaimlerChrysler and Ford got into the act witha billion dollar investment in Ballard Systems in 1997, representing a 35% stockacquisition.

Ballard, along with his partners Keith Prater, a chemist and Paul Howard, anengineer had at last arrived. Gone were the days of beer and pizza and latenights testing designs on shoestring budgets. Their focus and persistence paidoff. Ballard was nominated as one of Time magazine’s “Time.com Heroes ofthe Environment” in 1999. His courage meant that he was able to not aloneinnovate, but also to get the world to wake up to the realities of dwindlingsupplies of fossil fuels and their effect on the environment.

He challenged the existing thinking, and all the indications are that he won.

The courage to change all systems that don’t support thefocus

Traditional performance management systems, with their emphasis on provingyou achieved a goal, are simply not suited to an environment where failure isseen as an essential step to improving.

Balancing the need to prove with the desire to improve is a leadership challengethat you need to rise to, and your organizational systems need to be flexibleenough to accommodate both needs.

In Geoffrey Ballard’s case there were more ‘failures’ than successes, but henevertheless succeeded. Had he been a member of an established organizationhis ‘failures’ might have gotten him reprimanded and perhaps even fired longbefore they paid off. The ‘performance management system’ would have gottento him first. But he used his failures as ways to learn and improve, and herefused to give up.

Human resource systems such as performance management, compensation,reward and recognition, recruitment, human resource development, andorganizational development need to be aligned with both innovative and controloriented thinking.

Many leaders think that they can tweak existing systems and all will be well. Thisis simply not so. Like all other organizational systems, you will find that yourHR systems are primarily designed to ensure control and small incrementalimprovements and will fall far short when it comes to supporting innovativebreakthroughs.

Take recruitment as a prime example.

Let’s say that you need to recruit people with really innovative minds, the typethat like to experiment a lot. Yet the recruitment system is built around standardjob descriptions, standard personnel profiles, standard wording in ads thatattract standard types of applicants, even standard interview processes withstandard sets of questions.

Tweaking such a recruitment process to meet the need for attracting highcaliber candidates who are innovators will not work.

Even if some bright people do manage to sneak in past all the controls,expecting these people to ‘conform’ to the many other standard HR systemswill eventually frustrate them and drive them to leave the organization.

The same applies for all the other processes in your organization. The courageto challenge the existing systems, and the people who manage them, is essentialto the success of the focus.

Be unrelenting on this.

Innovative and flexible systems lead to innovative and flexible outcomes. Thismay require bold strokes, such as hiring a non-HR type as a manager in chargeof creating innovative HR solutions, which need to coexist alongside the

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standard HR solutions, which you will still need. Don’t assume that thetraditional HR thinking can shift enough to meet the future needs of theorganization. If it does…great; if not, you need some imaginative solutions,perhaps some new blood.

Maybe a Geoffrey Ballard or two.

The courage to shut things down, phase things out

I believe that the vast majority of people come to work with the best ofintentions. They want to do a great job, one that they can be proud of, berecognized and rewarded properly for, and have some ownership in…one theycan really identify with.

And the last part, ownership and identity, is the one that will cause you the mostgrief. Because just as people are getting good at something, when they canidentify what contribution they are making, along comes a leader with differentideas.

The leader’s ideas may have a lot of merit, even be based on an ‘inescapablelogic’, but it hurts like hell to let go of something you have nurtured to life andwhich is still producing good results, in favor of something that has not yetbeen created, let alone tested out in the real world.

The solution for you as leader is to set two deadlines, a sunset for the old and asunrise for the new.

Be specific about these dates, and change them only when it is absolutelynecessary. Find a role for everyone in meeting both deadlines. Allow people tomourn the loss of the old, and celebrate the introduction of the new.

There is something really compelling about sunsets and sunrises. Use this notonly as a metaphor, but also as a practical tool in creating change.

Send out the message that sunsets can be just as beautiful as sunrises, thateventually the rising sun will also in time set, and then another one will rise in itsplace.

Emphasize that change is a natural phenomena that happens in life cycles.Leading people gracefully and fully through the transition from one cycle to thenext is essential to the growth of the organization and the people within it.

Leading such a transition is simple, but not easy.

The steps involved in phasing something out or bringing something new to lifecan be articulated using good project management tools. But the feelings andemotions that accompany transitions can at times cloud peoples’ judgment,cause friction, conflicts, even illness, and which if left unattended, can leavedeep wounds that may never fully heal.

For example, mergers and acquisitions that look good on paper can very oftenfail miserably, mainly because of a lack of understanding of what it takes tomerge two very different organizational cultures. Perhaps both organizationsexperience losses and the people concerned feel that it is not ‘politically correct’to talk about their deep feelings and sense of loss, especially with members ofthe ‘other organization’. They feel they must always be ‘up’ and soundingpositive about the changes, when the real truth is that they have very mixed andconfused emotions, and need to be able to sufficiently express them in order tomove on and help the organization achieve its focus.

Many leaders unwittingly promote this by themselves feeling that they mustalways show a positive side and appear ‘pumped’ when addressing the troops,rather than showing their authentic selves. They think that to do anything elsewould be ‘wimpy’, and certainly not courageous leadership!

The opposite is actually true. Allow people to talk about their losses…this mayfeel counter-intuitive, but it is essential to the achievement of your focus.Encourage people to express themselves authentically.

Remember, the sun has to set before it can rise again. This requires a delicatebalance. You don’t want, nor can you afford to allow people to wallow and getstuck in mourning their losses. But you must allow enough time for people togrieve.

How much is enough? You are going to have to determine this for yourself. Butremember one thing - to watch a sunset, you have to be facing west. If you keepfacing in that direction, even with the greatest will and determination, the bestview and the most powerful technology, you still won’t experience a newsunrise.

The trick to moving on is to change direction at the right time, to give people anew vista, a new focus. And you alone must lead that.

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Tips for developing courage

The following tips will help you to develop the courage necessary to engageyour organization in an effective STOP-START-IMPROVE strategy:

• Believe absolutely and wholeheartedly in your focus. Those opposingyou will think twice about attacking your aim, as they know thatyou will not back down.

• Engage in vigorous debate on the values underpinning your focus,whenever and as often as possible. This sharpens your intellect,reinforces your values and prepares you for the bigger battlesahead.

• Defend those who support the focus. You are not in this alone, anddeveloping courage involves defending those who are weaker or ina weaker position than you.

• Take the necessary time to think things through. Being courageousdoes not mean ‘storming the hill’. On the contrary, sometimes ittakes a lot of courage and nerves of steel to wait things out. Giveyourself the time to make well thought out decisions.

• Call on others when you feel cornered. Don’t be afraid to marshal theforces if the going gets tough.

Summary of Key Questions

As a way to get you thinking about this on a deeper level, try answering thesequestions for yourself:

What will it take to achieve our focus…what will we need to:

STOP

START

IMPROVE

How have we handled change in the past?

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How should we handle change this time around?

How will we handle competition and conflict between the two sides ofour organization (the innovators and the controllers)? How can we showthat BOTH are equally essential to our success?

How will we celebrate our past successes (sunsets) and rejoice in ournew directions (sunrises)?

How will we handle people who decide that they no longer want to bepart of our organization? What overriding human values need to beuppermost in our minds if we decide to part company?

What must I as a leader personally do in order to lead by example? Whatpersonal behaviors must I Stop/Start/Improve?

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A final note on COURAGE

Being committed to moving forward towards your focus is not mandatory.Neither, as W. Edwards Deming said, is survival.

It’s a matter of personal choice. Katherine Hathaway put it quite well when shesaid:

“If you let your fear of consequence prevent you from following your deepest instinct, your lifewill be safe, expedient and thin.”

I have known some people in leadership positions who have led such ‘safe,expedient and thin’ lives, and who always seemed to be struggling to understandwhy they were not recognized as a great leader.

Truly focused, authentic, courageous leaders show, through their personalexample, that leading is a decision they have made, not something that wasbestowed on them as a title because of past accomplishments or futurepotential.

Mahatma Gandhi captured the true essence of courageous leadership when hesaid:

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."

If you want the world to be a better place to live in, and you have the courage tochange it, you will need plenty of other people on your side, which brings us onto the next chapter…

CCHHAAPPTTEERR 44:: EEMMPPAATTHHYY -- MMAAKKIINNGG

CCOONNVVEERRSSAATTIIOONN AA CCOORREE CCOOMMPPEETTEENNCCYY“Prophets grow in stature as people respond to their message. If their early attempts are ignoredor spurned, their talent may wither away” – Robert K. Greenleaf, ‘The Servant as Leader’

Focus of this chapter: The ability to understand others, to value their input, totake the time to listen even in the midst of fast change and furious action, andto capitalize on that input. To value diversity and to walk a mile in the otherperson’s shoes.

Slow down and listen

Listen up. Most of us have difficulty in really listening. Although we live in atechnology driven world, where the promise of faster, easier and better qualitycommunications is made daily, the reality is that this outcome remains as elusiveas ever.

Our span of attention has dwindled to ‘point & click’. (If you don’t believe this,try waiting for a computer program or a web site to load, and measure yourfrustration if it takes longer than 10 seconds.)

Organizations of all types, profit, non-profit, government, non-governmenthave been caught in this ‘faster is better’ myth. After all, speed is somethingtangible, something you can measure objectively.

In addition to cost, speed as a measure of corporate performance has in manyinstances won out over quality. The latter, because of difficulty in measuring it‘objectively’, in many cases has been given lip service and the inevitable kiss-off.

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Recommended Reading

The importance of listening was emphasized by Bill Pollard, Chairman of The ServiceMasterCompany, in his book “The Soul of the Firm”, when he said “How do you get people to takeinitiative, to grow and develop, to treat the company as if it were theirs? Obviously, you have toprovide a compensation package that is fair and competitive, but any firm can do that. Youalso have to pay attention. You listen to your employees, get to know them, find out whatmakes them tick, and then help them reach their goals.”

This heavy accent on speed does not allow us to slow down long enough tocatch what another person might be trying to tell us.

In the next chapter we will cover the topic of ‘timing’, which is altogetherdifferent from ‘speed; but we sometimes get the two mixed up. In this chapter,we will focus our attention on how to slow things down sufficiently to makeintelligent and focused discussions a core competency for you and yourorganization, and in so doing strengthen the relationships that exist betweenpeople and between ideas.

The art of conversation can become a major competitive advantage for you.How good are you at conversation?

Imagine the following scenario. You are at a party, and are engaged in aconversation that is really stimulating. Not a heavy intellectual debate, just aconversation about a topic for which you have a point of view, an interest in.You notice that other groups at the party are looking in the direction of yourgroup, some in an apparently envious way. They may even be contemplatingjoining your fun group.

Just then the host pops her head in and says “Stop having so much fun, you’remaking us all jealous!”

Then suddenly it hits you. Why can’t all conversations be like this? Why can’t Ihave conversations like this ALL THE TIME at work, instead of thoseinterminable meetings that get nowhere and seem to take on a life of their own?

How to have quality conversations

When was the last time you had a really good conversation with someone? Holdon a minute…before you answer that, here are some conditions that wouldneed to be met in order for that conversation to be “good”…

• No phone calls, no background noise, uninterrupted time, nopreoccupation

• Open agenda

• Descriptive versus evaluative discussion (i.e. non-judgmental disclosureof thoughts and feelings)

• Acknowledgement of equal status of participants during theconversation

• Problem orientated versus controlling

• Spontaneous, rather than strategic

• Empathic versus neutral

• Active listening (e.g. avoidance of too much internal dialogue)

Now answer that question.

Are you surprised by your answer? It seems that in the rapid pace of our timesand the nature of organizational life, we may have lost, or misplaced, the simpleart of conversation.

If you were to ask leaders or members of a team where the barriers are withintheir work place, the response you would likely get would be related to the lackof processes within the organization to improve the quality and effectiveness ofcommunication.

Bringing the art of conversation back into your work life might be the answer!So how do you do it?

Conversational forms can range on a continuum from Conflict Avoidance toOpen Conflict to Exploratory Dialogue to Agreement/Closure.

Any conversation can progress or regress on this continuum (see Fig 2).

Let’s put this into a real world context for a moment…

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Which form would have been demonstrated in the last federal election in yourcountry?

How about the conflict in Palestine?

How about the Enron debacle and the refusal of some parties to testify?

Do these situations sound more like Conflict Avoidance or Open Conflict thanExploratory Dialogue or Agreement/Closure?

No doubt the former, for the most part.

Now what about the last discussion you had with a staff member? Where wouldyou place that on the continuum?

As individuals move from left to right along the continuum, the conversationbecomes more attuned to a shared meaning of reality.

To engage people in exploratory dialogue, you need to move away from thetraditional form of discussion in which you may orient yourself aroundadvocating (your own point of view), towards a balance between advocating andinquiring (about the other person’s perspective).

You then have a greater understanding of the reasoning and assumptionsbehind both points of view.

Moving into agreement/closure goes one step further…

You need to judge when the timing is right (more on this in the next chapter),and determine if there is enough ground to reach a consensus, while avoidingfalse consensus, or a ‘forced’ solution. You need to walk in the other person’sshoes, while at the same time avoiding the tendency to shoe horn your thinkinginto their shoes!

Both forms of conversation, advocating or inquiring, are useful, depending onthe circumstances and the intent of the discussion.

Exploratory dialogue (inquiring) is useful when you and your team want toexplore, to discover or to gain insight (divergent thinking). It is used to improvethe quality of collective thinking and interacting. Alignment improves as yourgroup sees how their work fits into a larger whole.

In Agreement/Closure, (mostly advocating) you and the team intend to come tosome closure, to make a decision, to reach agreement or to identify priorities.The discussion is more focused on tasks and the group’s thinking comingtogether (convergent thinking).

There are a number of useful approaches or techniques that can be used topractice these conversational skills, one of which we shall discuss in the nextsection.

Give people space and time to think

Talk to most people and they would agree with you that more time is lostannually in poorly run meetings than in strikes, downtime, travel, injuries, illnessor any other causes that you can care to think of. The only problem is, lost timedue to poorly run meetings is unaccounted for.

There are many tools for running effective meetings, yet most of them are sobadly integrated into meeting processes, that they only result in worsening thesituation.

Recommended Reading

Author and consultant Harrison Owen felt compelled to write about his experiences infacilitating meetings, when he discovered that, at conferences he attended, some of the bestconversations were heard at the coffee breaks. This got him thinking. What if a meeting wasorganized in such a way that it gave people enough space to take charge, arrange their ownagenda, and form natural groups based on what they wanted to discuss, not what the meetingconveners, facilitators, consultants and experts wanted them to discuss. Thus was born ‘OpenSpace’, a breakthrough approach to meetings that actually works, (unless the leader has a needfor ‘control’ that pushes him or her in the direction of being ‘always in charge’, which killsspontaneity. Time is money, right?)

That was the case until "Open Space" was developed. This approach to meetingmanagement (if it could be called that) was first pioneered by Owen, who haswritten two books on the subject. Simply stated, this approach is based on thebelief (and it turns out a true one at that), that people who voluntarily attendmeetings, will do whatever it takes to make them work. At the same time, thosewho are "press-ganged" into attending will in many cases work to defeat themeeting purpose.

In running an Open Space style of meeting, there are no ground rules. Youcould be forgiven for thinking that this would create a recipe for meetingmadness (especially if you have ever attended a Toastmasters meeting!).

Not so.

The approach uses what's known as the Four Principles, One Law and Two Engines,and it works. It draws its power from the fact that all groups, if left alone, willbecome largely self-organizing, if they have a focus and only if they are allowedto be.

The Four Principles

These are:

• Whoever is present are the right people

• Whatever happens is the only thing that could have

• Whenever it starts is the right time

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• When it's over, it's over

The One Law (or the Law of Two Feet)

During the course of the meeting, any person who finds him or herself in asituation where they are neither learning nor contributing, they must use theirtwo feet and go to some more productive place.

The Two Engines

These are:

Passion for the issue, bounded by the Responsibility to search for and findsolutions.

As a meeting facilitator, I was recently challenged (at short notice) to facilitate ameeting of 200+ delegates to a conference, during which the possibility ofconflict was relatively high. I chose to use the above elements of Open Space, inorder to give the delegates the opportunity to 'step up to the plate', takeresponsibility and make things work. My role was to 'open' the space for themand then to keep it open. They didn’t let me down. The conference was a greatsuccess.

Open Space is an effective, economical, fast, and easily repeatable strategy fororganizing meetings large and small. This apparently unstructured approach to‘managing’ meetings has been used globally with groups ranging in size from 5to 1,000. The participants leave the meeting with a printed account (aka report)of the discussions, and a passion to make the findings work.

Why does an approach like this work? I feel the characteristics that are evidentare as follows:

Spontaneity

Not having a preset agenda (the participants create one at the beginning) allowsfor an early exchange of information between the participants, and thespontaneous kick-start of open dialogue

Control

Participants do not feel ‘corralled’ by someone else’s agenda, and therefore takecontrol themselves, within the context of the topic

Spirit of Inquiry

Opening up enough space for people to talk about what interests them plays topeoples’ natural curiosity, and promotes a balance between advocacy andinquiry. It inspires people to open up space for each other, and to engage indialogue that explores that space.

Outcomes

How people use their time is up to them, but the need to produce a report, atangible outcome at the end, drives people towards closure.

What does this have to do with empathy, the subject of this chapter?

An empathic leader knows that adopting these conversational characteristics canact as a counterbalance to the notion that the leader’s passion for his or herfocus might translate into or be perceived as an autocratic command andcontrol style of leadership.

Although as a leader you need to be passionate about your focus, you also needto be just as passionate about giving people the space and time to relate to youand others, to think, experiment, learn, grow and develop.

This interest in people is not altruistic. That would be sympathy, not empathy.It is a reflection of the value that you as a leader place in people and what theycan offer. The attitude that people have towards your organization is in largepart a reflection of what they value in the purpose of the organization, the rolethey play and what they can expect in return.

In many ways it is a new contract for a new era. The old type of ‘employmentcontract’ was attuned towards a different set of economic and societalcircumstances, for a different era. The word employee has as its root ‘employ’which means ‘to use’, whereas the new contract is fundamentally different.

It emphasizes the relationship that an organization has with people as itsgreatest asset, not the people. After all, an asset is something you own, a ‘thing’,something you manage and can dispose of in whatever way you wish. Peopletherefore are not ‘assets’ to be used; rather the relationship that you have withpeople is your greatest asset. This is a fundamental point in your developmentas a leader. Treat people as ‘assets’, and you dehumanize them.

You need to build relationships through understanding people, as Bill Pollard ofServiceMaster said: “getting to know them, finding out what makes them tick,and then helping them reach their goals.” And you can only do that throughactive listening.

When teams don’t listen

Active listening, moving along in the right direction on the conversationalcontinuum, gaining a better understanding of each other and achieving closureare essential ingredients for team success.

But many teams stall and even regress on this continuum. Conflict avoidance ismore evident than open conflict in many organizations. The result is false orforced consensus, resulting in more conflict avoidance, and at times leadingeventually to open conflict.

Empathy among team members and between teams can occur spontaneously.But in many cases, when teams are stuck, it takes a conscious effort on the part

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of the leader to introduce the topic…for many teams it is a hot potato that noone wants to handle.

In teams that have a diverse range of people from different culturalbackgrounds this is a real challenge. Diversity can be both a stimulator ofchange or if not understood, an impediment.

Bestselling author Stephen Covey says that ‘strength lies in differences, notsimilarities”. The key is to build teams based on complementary characteristics,not clones of each other.

Knowing each team member’s strengths, weaknesses, preferences and principles(beliefs & values), and building a team based on complementary characteristicsrequires a leader to step forward and address the fears that people may haveconcerning this degree of personal revelation, this degree of empathy for eachother.

As discussed in a previous chapter, many organizations have HR systemsdesigned around control, with rewards and punishment that have a distinctivelyPavlovian flavor (pardon the pun).

These systems can and do instill fear in an organization, making people feel thatin order to advance in the organization or at least stand still, they have to ‘lookgood’ all the time.

As the great quality pioneer W. Edwards Deming advocated, leaders need to“drive fear out of their organizations”. An organization that operates on the fearfactor cannot develop a sustainable high performance team culture. In anorganization gripped by fear, empathy is a word that conjures up a ‘soft’approach to issues. Leaders, especially those in the middle ranks of suchorganizations, are forced to rule by fear. Very often this type of rule is covert,with all the usual surface manifestations of ‘teamwork’ evident – slogans,recognition (Pavlov again), teambuilding exercises, team announcements bysenior management, team names, t-shirts, mugs and plenty of fodder for Dilbertcartoons.

Drive fear out. Root it out. Expose it. Do whatever it takes to make fear evidentand make it obsolete. Make elimination of fear an organizational goal, even anorganizational value. Fear in organizations tends to be systemic. Overhaul yoursystems. Start with goal setting and performance appraisals, the root of muchfear.

How?

Treat goal setting as a ‘hypothesis testing’ exercise. (If…we introduce this newprogram…we believe it may…produce these results.) Treat performanceappraisal as an opportunity to discuss whether the hypothesis was true or false,whether it worked or not, and what WE need to do differently next time. Call itsomething else, how about Performance Feedback?

Focus on team performance, less on individual performance. The sum of thewhole is better than the individual parts. If a team member is struggling, workwith them in an empathic way, seek to understand them. As you undertake yourown journey, understand that other team members are probably struggling withtheirs too.

Help them along the way.

But whatever you do on an individual basis, connect or reconnect the individualwith the team, help them to become part of something significant, help them tobelong.

Maslow tells us that we all desire to belong to something worthwhile, to bewanted, to be loved. In fact, it has been shown that people fear social isolationmore than they fear death, which is why some people commit suicide; death isoften a better option than isolation, being unwanted, being unloved.

When a leader takes a keen and genuine interest in developing a cohesive team,he or she connects on a very human and even spiritual level with people. Theleader builds a community, a communion of people. There is no stronger bondcreated than when people come together to make something significant happen.

Make work an adventure. I am reminded of a quotation by Milton R. Saperstein,which captures much of what I am trying to convey here:

“Working for an organization should be an adventure, not an anxious discipline in whicheverybody is constantly graded for performance”

Most people who leave corporate life do so because they are unhappy with theirboss, rather than dissatisfaction with their contract, their pay or their benefits.Various studies have confirmed this. But more than that, I believe many are nothappy with the fact that organizational life is not an adventure, has become dulland boring, and they happen to have a boss who is also dull and boring, andwho only knows how to manage people, not lead them.

Don’t become this type of boss.

Ask people ‘what it’s like to work around here’. Don’t readily accept it whenthey tell you ‘it’s super’…remember fear can make liars of us all.

Listen to your customers

Paying attention to establishing conversational skills inside your organization iscrucial to success, but what about the external world, where your clients orcustomers live? Listening to the customer also needs attention, but listening tothe customer is not enough.

What makes a loyal customer? One who speaks loudly and with fervor aboutyour organization, telling others how you have made a real and positivedifference in their lives?

In a word - expectations.

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But meeting or exceeding customer expectations is not as simple as it firstappears.

For a start, many of your customers or prospective customers are not sure whatthey should expect.

Many will not tell you because they expect you to know...after all, you're theexpert at what YOU do, and you can't expect the customer to know as muchabout that as you.

In our work with clients, we like to break this problem down into pieces, andfor that purpose we use what we call The Customer Loyalty Grid™ to help usunderstand this better.

This grid is divided into four zones, as depicted in Figure 3.

Unstated/Expected...The Zone of Indifference

Literally, this includes all those customer needs and wants that are basic tofulfilling the contract between you and them.

For example, customers expect to be treated with courtesy and respect, andwould probably be puzzled (and maybe even insulted) if you asked them if thiswas a need. Of course it’s a need, and if you don't meet this need, you will causeDISSATISFACTION. If you meet this basic and obvious need, the best youcan hope for is INDIFFERENCE.

Stated/Expected...The Zone of Satisfaction

This is where your customer actually TELLS you what is important to them.Listen carefully here, as this is a key stepping stone to customer loyalty. Meetinga customer's needs here will cause SATISFACTION, whereas not meeting themwill cause DISSATISFACTION.

For example, a customer might expect a volume discount on a purchase, butknows that they have to specifically ask (or negotiate) for it. It is an expectation,perhaps because other organizations that the customer deals with provide asimilar benefit.

Stated/Unexpected...The Zone of Delight

This is where your customer HOPES for something, ASKS for it, but reallydoes not expect you to provide it. This is your opportunity to providesomething beyond their expectations and by so doing will create DELIGHT.

For example, a customer might ask for something that is usually available onlyin a premium priced product. Not providing it will unlikely cause dissatisfaction,whereas providing it will cause delight.

Therefore this is an area for particular attention in building a LOYAL customerbase.

Unstated/Unexpected...The Zone of Loyalty

This is an area where your expertise in whatever product or service you provideand the customer's lack of expertise can really pay off! Providing benefits aboveand beyond what the customer is even aware of can create a LOYAL customer.This requires you to be really proactive in suggesting to customers newinnovations that they can really benefit from. Many customers will be evenwilling to pay extra for this.

For example, CD players in automobiles when first introduced were aninnovation, but customers had no way of asking for this innovation, orexpecting it, before it became known to them.

All Zones are equally important

To get to the Zone of Loyalty, you must first conquer the other zones...thereare no shortcuts.

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If your organization is really good at innovations (the key factor in creatingLoyalty), but struggles at reliability (the key factor in creating Satisfaction), thenit will end up struggling in all four zones.

Loyalty creating innovations are time limited

What was once an unstated/unexpected innovation will eventually becomeunstated/expected...would you now purchase a car without a CD player? Wouldyou even ask the salesperson if it is installed? So maintaining a rate ofinnovation that matches or exceeds what the market demands is crucial tomaintaining customer loyalty.

All parts of your organization are involved in creating loyal customers...thosewho produce and deliver the basic product or service, reliably day in and dayout, as well as those who create and bring to market new offerings that delightthe customer.

Treat them all as members of the same team...the Customer Loyalty Team...andyou will reap the benefits well into the future.

When you lead…do others follow?

Much has been written about leadership style, and you may be wondering, givenall of the foregoing, if your leadership style is the ‘right’ one for the task. Goodquestion…and hopefully one I can answer in this next section.

On a good day, most leaders would answer 'yes' to the question ‘when youlead…do others follow?’

But what happens on the not-so-good days? What happens when you have tomake tough decisions quickly, or you have to deal with a noticeable drop inteam or individual performance?

Do your people hesitate in following you then?

Situations like this are becoming more and more prevalent across varioussectors, as customers demand higher and higher performance from you andyour team, and your team demands more say in how decisions are made andhow 'things get done around here'…more empowerment.

The speed with which products, programs and services need to be developedand delivered has accelerated to the point that theoretical approaches to'empowerment' get bogged down in their own rationale, and become flavor ofthe month very quickly.

Leadership style is important, and your followers are in the best position to bethe judges and provide you with feedback on what is your predominant style.But how do you elicit that type of candid feedback?

The answer is to get to know your followers, and one way to do this is to…

Walk a while in their shoes

West Edmonton Mall (WEM) in Alberta, Canada is one of the world’s largestmalls.

Imagine if you were the manager of such a mega-mall, and you decided to spendsome time getting to know each and every employee? How would you go aboutit?

WEM manager Gary Hanson decided that he would spend one day per monthover an 18-month period working in each department, starting withmaintenance. People were surprised to find him in the mall parking lot in themiddle of winter (it gets awfully cold up here in The Great White North!)picking up cigarette butts, polishing garbage cans and collecting rubbish.

Here’s how he described his experience to the local newspaper, “Time went byvery quickly and I enjoyed having a beer later with our crew. When people arerelaxed, they tell you what they really think” he told a reporter from theEdmonton Journal.

Hanson modeled his approach on Southwest Airlines CEO Herb Kelleher who,at 67, traveled the US working as a baggage handler. Herb Kelleher is a largerthan life leader. Renowned for his goofball antics and sense of humor, thisleader insists that business must be fun. As CEO of Southwest Airlines, whichhe co-founded in 1967, he developed a company that has proven you cannotunderestimate the ‘little guy’.

Using a low cost, no frills, fun approach to air travel, Southwest has proven thatexcellent customer service and turned-on employees are possible, even whilestill emphasizing the need to operate in a streamlined fashion. Southwest arerenowned for on time service, in particular their ability to turn around anaircraft within twenty minutes of landing. And they have the loyal customers toprove that it is a winning business proposition.

In a testimonial to the FAA in 1997, he stated, “My name is Herb Kelleher. Ico-founded Southwest Airlines in 1967. Because I am unable to performcompetently any meaningful function at Southwest, our 25,000 employees letme be the chief executive officer. That is one among many reasons I love thepeople of Southwest Airlines.”

Self effacing comments like this are typical of this leader, who places a heavyemphasis on giving Southwest people the freedom to be innovative, provideexcellent customer service and have fun in the process. That is not to say thatthey do not run a disciplined airline. On the contrary, they pride themselves ontaking business seriously, but taking themselves with a pinch of salt.

The phrase “low cost, high spirit” emphasizes the Southwest Airlines dual focuson customers and employees, which has made it famous, not just within thehighly regulated and extremely competitive airline industry, but everywhere elsethat leadership is discussed. Their ‘People Department’ motto is “Feel Free toActually Enjoy What You Do”

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What ideas do you have to walk a while in the other person’s shoes? The otherperson can be a customer, employee, supplier, community member, even yourown boss.

Tips for active listening

Let’s face it, we all struggle when it comes to listening…really listening.

Bob Rae, a Canadian lawyer, politician and former Premier of Ontario, wasonce told by his wife that he had two communication styles – talking andwaiting to talk. Many of us fall into the same trap: saying what we have to say,then as the other person is talking we are having our own internal conversation,getting ready to have our next say. If the other person does the same, then noconversing actually takes place! They go away thinking that they have beentalking to the wall, and they’re both right!

The answer is to develop the skill of active listening. Here are some tips fordeveloping that skill:

• Be present, live in the now. Don’t be thinking about the next meeting,or the conversation you had yesterday. Shut down all internalconversations you may be having with yourself. I know, easier saidthan done, but keep in mind that having two conversations at oncewill at best result in two very poor conversations.

• Establish rapport. Do this early on and maintain it. Don’t rush in to theconversation without taking the time to ‘break the ice’.

• Focus on the other person. Ask them what they want to achieve fromthe conversation. Then tell them what you would like to achieve.keep it conversational.

• Clarify what the other person is saying. Sometimes people makestatements that are half-thoughts, not fully formulated yet. Givethem the benefit of the doubt, and use the opportunity to explorethe statement further with them.

• Confirm what’s fact and what’s opinion. This really shows that you arenot just an empty vessel taking in what’s been said, but listeningactively.

• Make a conscious decision to strike a balance between advocacy(making your point) and inquiry (exploring and seekingunderstanding).

• Lighten up. Use humor to smooth out rough spots, but make itappropriate humor. No jokes at someone else’s expense. It’s bestto make jokes at your own expense than others – it also portraysyou as human and someone with a sense of humor.

• Take notes if appropriate – this is another piece of evidence that youare listening actively.

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• Summarize the conversation and ask the other person to help you withthis.

• Follow up. Keep the channels of communication open by arranging tofollow up with the other person…then do it! This really reinforcesthe fact that you have not just listened actively, but have beeninfluenced by what the other person has said.

• Listening actively is a skill that anyone can learn. It takes much practiceto master it, and not every encounter will be perfect. Let peopleknow that you are trying your best to ‘be present’ despite all of theother distractions in your busy day. They will respond positively tothis.

• But maintain your focus. You need to draw the line.

• Actively listening to someone trying to undermine you, your focus oryour organizational values needs to be dealt with in a firm manner.Instead, encourage people to find creative ways to achieve thefocus, and listen attentively to what they have to say.

The questions on the next two pages will assist you in building your capacity tobecome more aware of what an empathic approach can do for you and yourteam.

Summary of Key Questions

As a way to get you thinking about this on a deeper level, try answering thesequestions for yourself:

How good am I at having conversations?

How good am I at listening? Think of a recent conversation that went well.Think of one that didn’t. What were the differences between the two?

Is organizational life an adventure for me, for my followers/teammembers? If not, why not? How much fun do people have at work in myorganization?

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How much do I value diversity? How can I ‘walk a while in their shoes’?

How much open space do I give people in creating the changes that willsupport the focus?

A final note on EMPATHY

Being empathetic does not mean being soft. On the contrary, understandingpeople is perhaps the toughest part of a leader’s job, because you never knowwhat you might find.

Conflict avoidance in organizations is born out of the reluctance of leaders toface some of the tough issues that plague their organizations. But in thisavoidance, the opportunity to discover the good in people, their naturalcreativeness, their desire to belong to something that has meaning, is very oftenlost.

Match empathy with focus, authenticity and courage and watch people grow.

Focus on the specifics that will make your organization, your team ‘a great placeto work’ and ‘do business with’.

Listen empathically to what your inner self tells you is the right thing to do.Take the higher road, as this quote aptly describes it…

“The conventional definition of management is getting work done through people, but realmanagement is developing people through work.” - Agha Hasan Abedi

Now that’s an adventure!

As you develop the skill of empathy, keep in mind that many leaders have falleninto the trap of creating dialogue within their organizations, but forgetting thatchange only happens through action.

Inaction becomes especially evident as time passes and no one sees results,which brings us on to our next chapter.

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CCHHAAPPTTEERR 55:: TTIIMMIINNGG -- BBEETTTTEERR VVAALLUUEE,,FFAASSTTEERR“…I can’t help but think how much better it would have been if I had done it faster. Youknow at the time everything we did was radical. Who knows? I might have gotten fired if Ihad worked faster” – Jack Welch in an interview with Robert Slater, April 1999

Focus of this chapter: The ability to read a situation carefully and decide notjust whether to act or not to act, but more importantly, the right time to act.The role of speed based competition and innovation.

An idea whose time has come

Okay, we’re in the final straight. You’ve decided on your focus. You’ve startedyour journey towards greater self-awareness. You’ve gathered your team anddemonstrated the courage to challenge people’s view of reality. You’ve begunthe task of listening to lots of other people about how the focus can beachieved.

Now comes the toughest part of all - setting deadlines.

We already talked about deadlines, sunsets and sunrises, in a previous chapter.We also briefly discussed the corporate preoccupation with speed for the sakeof speed and what effect it can have on quality.

Now we will get down to discussing timing and how we can master our time.

Getting the timing right on key decisions and actions is what will make or breakany strategy. Introduce an innovation too quickly or too hastily, and the rewardscan go to a competitor who learns from your mistakes and moves at the

requisite speed to introduce an alternative product or service, probably not evenas good technically as what you have to offer.

Proponents of time based innovation or competition, such as George Stalk, Jr.of the Boston Consulting Group, are keen to emphasize that it is the relativespeed that counts.

Time based leadership is all about being faster at providing value…in short,“better value, faster.”

But many leaders and their organizations have struggled with this. Instead ofcreating nimble, smooth flowing organizations, they have created organizationsthat always seem to be on a treadmill that keeps running faster and faster,without any noticeable payoffs.

I believe that part of the reason for this is the inability of organizations to learnquickly from their experiences…in short, their inability to become a truelearning organization.

As you engage your organization on its journey…it will become more focused,more authentic, more courageous (especially at bottom line innovation), andmore willing to listen empathically, to each other, to customers, to suppliers.

That last point is one that is at the core of being a learning organization.

When Peter Senge published “The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of theLearning Organization”, he unleashed something that promised at last to be a wayfor organizations to achieve a level of authenticity and learning that wouldprovide an unbeatable competitive advantage.

But many organizations mistook the concept of a ‘learning organization’ asmeaning more consensus building, more dialogue, more debate…and lessclosure. For many, creating a ‘learning organization’ became the central focus.Conferences, workshops, seminars, consultants, executive retreats, books, etcgrew out of a genuine interest in what is a sound concept…and a whole newindustry emerged.

Then organizations lost their focus.

As mission critical decisions needed to be made and executed with relativespeed, these organizations languished in a sea of dialogue, debate, introspectionand at times false consensus.

The ‘learning organization’ movement was in trouble.

The central tenet of a learning organization is that no learning can occurwithout action, reflection and reaction, in a repeating cycle that takes intoaccount unanticipated outcomes. These cycles occur within predictabletimeframes. Few organizations truly mastered the ability to use time as aframework to measure and manage their learning. When I ask the question

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“What’s the deadline on this?” in organizations that are caught in this trap, theresponse I often get is “Oh, its ongoing”.

I then advise the leaders that they have to rid their leadership vocabulary of theword ‘ongoing’.

Understand that as a leader you need to know and appreciate the value ofidentifying mission critical processes and their time cycles.

These processes cover product/service development, testing, prototyping,implementing, marketing, selling, producing, delivering, follow-up, evaluationand the many support processes involved in making your organization the bestplace to do business with and to work in.

You have to know when to let a process run and when to intervene. You haveto emphasize the need to engage everyone fully in process simplification inorder to shorten these cycle times, which will result in lower costs and improvedquality, better speed to market, more responsiveness, as well as greatersatisfaction for everyone – customers, suppliers, and employees.

This is how to deliver ‘better value, faster.’

It’s okay to be impatient

Canadian geophysicist Geoffrey Ballard was awarded an honorary degree fromthe University of Victoria in British Columbia in 1999 for his pioneering workon hydrogen fuel cell technology, which now promises to be one of the newfuels to replace fossil fuel as our prime source of power.

In his acceptance speech, he told the engineering students assembled to ‘beimpatient’. His own journey began in the seventies and would not havesucceeded had he been a patient man. He makes a very valid point.

Another case in point is IBM. April 1, 1993 is a date that many thought wouldbe an April fool’s day for IBM. At that time, many commentators were seriouslyquestioning the survival of Big Blue. In a new economy that rewarded speed, itcertainly looked like IBM’s culture had reached a point where its slow movingbureaucracy would bog it down.

But newcomer Lou Gerstner, with stints at RJR Nabisco and American ExpressCo. to buoy him along, knew differently. Appointed as Chair and CEO on thatfaithful day in April, he set about literally reinventing IBM. The task before himwas daunting…reinvent IBM as a service organization, and break thedependency on hardware and software. Many thought that bringing someone infrom the outside signaled not only a crisis in IBM, but also desperation.

Gerstner proved them wrong. Known as a somewhat impatient man, he quicklymoved to keep IBM from breaking up. He established IBM Global Services asthe biggest and fastest growing part of the company, representing 43% of sales,and estimated profits of $5.3 billion on service revenue of $35.7 billion, in 2001.

IBM regained its footing in markets such as servers, software and storagedevices also.

Regarded as a very focused leader, he gets to the point quickly and makes itclear to everyone what his expectations are. Turning around an organization asbig as IBM in such a relatively short time required such focus anddetermination, but above all a great sense of timing.

Although ‘patience is a virtue’, and leaders such as Gandhi and Mandela haveused it to their advantage, other leaders have used impatience as a spur toaction. For example, Steve Jobs of Apple, Lou Gerstner of IBM, Jack Welch ofGE are all known for their insistence on speed coupled with quality.

These leaders know that organizations have a way of ensuring that, if left alone,everyone eventually slows down to the pace of the slowest function or process.

They know that it is the role of the leader to question this and to insist that thespeed and timing of the whole system is not compromised by a slow performingpart.

They insist on ‘better value, faster’ from the entire system, and they areimpatient to see it happen.

To emphasize the need for urgency, effective leaders benchmark against thehigh performers in their industry and outside their industry. Their practicedimpatience extends to demanding that their managers do this on a regular basis.

Hospitals benchmark their admissions processes not just with other hospitals,but other industries, such as hotels.

Manufacturers study theme parks to see how they tackle total quality andmaintenance.

Process cycle times are ideally suited to such studies, because time is a universalconcept. Such studies bring fresh thinking into an organization, and place arenewed emphasis on the value of time and timely execution.

But keep in mind that effective leaders do not pursue speed or emphasizeurgency just for the sake of it.

On the contrary, they engage their organizations in a race against time for valid,market driven reasons. And they are explicit about those reasons...fasterproduct/service development, on time delivery, shorter response times, etc.with a payoff in improved customer satisfaction, lower costs, improvedprofitability and increased market share.

And they always look for these bottom line payoffs before giving the green lightto something. No use being the fastest kid on the block if you are also thepoorest.

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The role of Project Management in a time-based strategy

Project Management has been billed as THE management system for the newmillennium. Management guru Tom Peters, amongst others, has longacknowledged its importance in ensuring well planned, well timed and wellexecuted strategy. The discussions that need to take place within a properproject management framework always emphasize the timely performance ofcritical tasks.

Professional project managers know this only too well. Novices on the otherhand like to ‘get things done quickly and out of the way’, which in a projectmanagement sense makes no sense.

Your leadership role in ensuring that Project Management becomes a way of lifein your organization is essential to the success of your focus.

As you help others identify the many ways by which the focus can be achieved,a critical few will translate into major projects.

Would you place all your bets on a horse that received only limited training?Many leaders do this with projects. In their keenness to get going, they pullproject teams together quickly and assume (wrongly as it turns out) that themembers, because they have ‘worked on projects before’ have the skills and thediscipline to make it happen this time.

Do yourself a favor. Invite a project management professional in to yourorganization to assess your organizations capacity to execute projects…thenlisten to the feedback. You may be shocked by the results.

Everyone in your organization is impacted by these major projects, not just theteam members. And everyone needs to understand the importance of projectmanagement as a skill that THEY need to develop in order to personallysucceed. This applies to you also.

But traditional project management will not be enough to make projectssucceed. It hasn’t in the past, mainly because it was an engineers’ domain, andunless you were an engineer, you simply shunned the seemingly stodgy world ofGantt Charts, PERT Charts and Critical Paths.

But a lot has changed in recent years…and for the better.

Organizations have found ways to inject excitement and fun into projects, tobring them into the everyday life of ordinary folk, and to make them anadventure.

The neatest thing about projects is that they have a beginning, middle andend…that is, they are not ‘ongoing’, (that word again) they are pure time andoutcome based cycles.

So what should you emphasize, as a leader, about projects, that will excitepeople about their potential?

Here are a few pointers:

• Developing project management skills is a prerequisite to advancementin the organization.

• The organization values short run (e.g. 90 days) experiments, in whichsmall well-executed projects build on each other to producephenomenal results. Being on a project team is not a life sentence!

• Being on a project team puts you in the forefront of change in theorganization and allows you to contribute to its success in a uniqueway.

• Being a member of a project team helps develop community within theorganization, and creates lasting friendships in a way that no othermanagement system could.

• Reward and recognition for being a member of a project team is timely,relevant and measured.

• Project Management is a portable skill in demand in all industries todayand into the future.

• Project teams are exciting and fun!

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Tips for getting timing right

Today, time based performance, whether it is in developing and introducingnew value adding products/services or reducing the time it takes to produce &deliver them represents a leading competitive edge.

How you manage it will depend on how much value you place on time andtiming. Here are some tips that will help you take a leadership position on thisimportant subject:

Prioritize

Make time and timing a top priority. Demonstrate this by making it aperformance indicator alongside such things as productivity, quality and costs.

Emphasize cycles of change

Rid your organization of the notion that change is ‘continuous’ or ‘ongoing’.Change happens in well-managed cycles, and these cycles need to have built inmechanisms that provide the organization the opportunity to take ‘time out’ toreview and revise its approaches.

Compress cycle times

Make your change cycles occur at short time intervals, and find ways to link onecycle with the next.

What’s a short cycle? Try 90 days.

If something can’t be tried out and proven within 90 days, break it down intosmaller chunks that can.

Lead by example

Identify your own personal critical processes (e.g. goal setting, communication,performance appraisal etc.) and make them examples of timely performance.

Apply the concepts of process simplification to make these processes a modelfor other larger organizational processes.

Follow-up

Make timely follow-up a key ingredient of how you lead. Develop a systemaround this, and insist that your followers do the same.

I know of no other single reason for lost time and mistimed opportunities inorganizations than lack of leader follow-up and accountability.

Use reasoned logic to tell you ‘when’

When people want to charge ahead with a risky idea, ask ‘why now?’ (asopposed to a week, month, quarter from now).

Demand a reasoned, logical answer…an inescapable logic. Ask ‘what willmoving on this now do for us?’ and ‘what will not moving on this now do forus?’

Know the payoff

Remember that excellence in timing, and time-based innovation, are not ends inthemselves. They must clearly show bottom line results. Link timely executionto a strategic outcome.

Use external cues

The external environment will tell you when it is time to move on somethingmore so than the internal environment.

Use first hand information from customers, suppliers and other externalstakeholders to supplement what the ‘internal data’ tells you. Very often internaldata a leader receives has been ‘washed’ to make it more palatable, and delayedbecause of internal processes that aim to make the provider of such data look‘smart’.

Effective leaders gain first hand and up to date knowledge of the externalenvironment by going directly to the source (Hanson and Kelleher, the twoleaders mentioned earlier are good examples of this).

The Japanese call this ‘going to the Gemba’, (the place where business getsdone) and it works.

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Emphasize value with speed

Find ways to reward and recognize people for exemplifying ‘better value, faster’.This emphasizes the value of relative speed, i.e. being faster at providing value.

Use dialogue and consensus building to move things along

Encourage open dialogue, but place a special value on closure.

Be ready to make solitary decisions when the consensus building mechanismsbog down. Let people know that you reserve the right to do this if consensuscannot be reached within a certain timeframe…but beware of false consensus.

Develop excellent decision-making skills

Do this for yourself and for those around you. Decision-making is a processthat can be learned.

Define your decision–making processes, especially the ones involving groupstackling complex issues.

Summary of Key Questions

There are many questions you can ask yourself and those around youconcerning timing. The following list will help get you started:

How much time do I need to allow to achieve my focus?

What first-hand external cues do I need to pay attention to in order tomake timely decisions?

What time-based performance indicators do I need to establish in orderto ensure that we move at the appropriate speed?

How can these time-based performance indicators be linked to astrategic outcome?

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What cycle times do we need to compress to be competitive?

How can we recognize and reward people for embracing the concept of‘better value, faster’

How can I lead by example concerning ‘better value, faster’?

How can I embed within our culture the concepts of 90-day changecycles and project management?

How can I avoid the ‘learning organization’ trap of ‘all dialogue and littleclosure’? How can I use time (and impatience) to move things along?

How can we develop our decision-making skills rapidly?

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A Final Note on TIMING

You will always look back and wonder whether or not you got the timing right.Yet you will never fully know the truth.

Being fully committed to your focus will always propel you forward. Sometimesyou will get the timing right, sometimes it will be off. Although you need tocreate opportunities for dialogue and consensus building, don’t allow it to beused as a crutch for inaction.

On the other hand, beware of those who would entice you into taking ‘urgentaction’ without good reason.

The reality is that there are very few truly ‘urgent’ issues in our lives, just thosewe let become urgent. I particularly like how Mother Theresa put it when shesaid:

“Even when the urgent is good, the good can keep you from your best, keep you from yourunique contribution, if you let it”

Remember…better value, faster. Make time your ally.

CCOONNCCLLUUSSIIOONNI started out at the beginning of this book by saying that the world needs greatleaders. Nothing has changed over the period within which I have worked onthis manuscript.

Few potentially great new leaders have emerged. I know, President BarackObama has many people in a hopeful frame of mind, but he still has a long wayto go.

Your journey towards becoming a great leader is unique to you.

You do not have to succeed on a scale similar to many of the leaders quoted inthis book. Your success may be within your own family, your work team, yourorganization or community.

How much success you attract to you is largely dependent on the choices youmake (remember, leadership is a decision, not a position) and of course yourdegree of commitment.

Concerning commitment, W. H. Murray, speaking about the Scottish HimalayanExperience towards the end of the 19th century, had this to say about it:

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back.

Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth, the ignorance ofwhich kills countless ideas and splendid plans:

That the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too.

All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred.

A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner ofunforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamtwould have come his way.

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I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets:

“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic init””

Are you ready to change the world?

UUSSEERR’’SS GGUUIIDDEE TTOO TTHHEE FFIIVVEE KKEEYY

FFAACCEETTSS

FOCUS

TIPS KEY QUESTIONS

Your FOCUS needs to be…

o A Central ThemeIt MUST be critical tothe success of yourorganization

o An Enduring End

ResultLet it represent aleader’s legacy

o A Call to ActionWhen people hear itthey immediately reactby thinking of ways toachieve it

o A New Much HigherStandardThis is certainly not‘business as usual’ – itcan be described as a‘breakaway strategy’

o A BIG ideaNot just a response to aBIG crisis

o Describe your focus(7+/-2)

o What are the ‘towardsmotivators?’

o What are the ‘away frommotivators’?

o How clear andunambiguous is my

focus?

o How specific andmeasurable is it?

o How much does it exciteand scare me (get me up

in the morning; keep meawake at night)?

o Is it central to ourorganization’s success?

o Do I have the energy to

achieve it?o Am I willing to stake my

career on it?o Does it excite others?

o Do they have the energyto achieve it?

o Does it get a negativereaction from some

people?

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AUTHENTICITYTIPS KEY QUESTIONS

To be more Authentic…

o Spend more timewith yourself.

o Find solitude

o Ask yourselfsearching questions

o Explore all aspectsof yourself

o Face the future…letgo of the past

o Learn how to trustyourself

o Seek feedback fromthose who knowyou

o Find a coach ormentor

o Avoid too muchreliance onstandardized testsand assessments

o Treat self-discoveryas a lifelong journey

Not so much questions, assignposts to finding thequestions that will work foryou…

o As you examine yourfocus, think about itshigher purpose

o Don’t be afraid toexplore.

o Consider discovery ofyour weaknesses asan opportunity tostrengthen your team

o As you reveal yourstrengths andweaknesses to yourfollowers, ask them tofollow you on yourjourney

o Understand thatpeople will initiallyexpect more of you interms of personalchange than they willof themselves

o Learn to talk sincerelyabout your feelings ingiven situations

o Keep your word

o Admit when you arewrong, then move on

COURAGETIPS KEY QUESTIONS

To be more Courageous…

o Believe absolutelyand wholeheartedlyin your focus

o Engage in vigorousdebate on thevaluesunderpinning yourfocus, wheneverand as often aspossible

o Defend those whosupport the focus

o Take the necessarytime to think thingsthrough

o Call on others whenyou feel cornered

o What will it take toachieve ourfocus…what will weneed to START-STOP-IMPROVE?

o How have we handledchange in the past?

o How should we handlechange this timearound?

o How will we handleinternal competitionand conflict?

o How will we celebrateour past successes(sunsets) and rejoicein our new directions(sunrises)?

o How will we handlethose who no longerwant to be part of ourorganization?

o What must I as aleader personally do inorder to lead byexample? Whatpersonal behaviorsmust I START-STOP-IMPROVE?

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EMPATHYTIPS KEY QUESTIONS

To be more Empathic…

o Be present, live inthe now

o Establish rapport

o Focus on the otherperson.

o Clarify what theother person issaying

o Confirm what’s factand what’s opinion

o Make a consciousdecision to strike abalance betweenadvocacy andinquiry

o Lighten up

o Take notes, ifappropriate

o Follow up

o Summarize theconversation andask the otherperson to help youwith this

Good conversations andactive listening are the keysto empathic leadership…

o How good am I athaving conversations?

o How good am I atlistening? Think of arecent conversationthat went well. Thinkof one that didn’t.What were thedifferences betweenthe two?

o Is organizational lifean adventure for me,for my followers/teammembers? If not, whynot? How much fundo people have atwork in ourorganization?

o How much do I valuediversity? How can I‘walk a while in theirshoes’?

o How much open spacedo I give people increating the changesthat will support thefocus?

TIMINGTIPS KEY QUESTIONS

To master Timing…

o Make timing apriority

o Emphasize cycles ofchange

o Compress cycletimes

o Lead by example

o Follow-up

o Use reasoned logicto tell you ‘when’

o Know the payoff.

o Use external cues

o Emphasize valuewith speed

o Use dialogue andconsensus buildingto move thingsalong

o Develop excellentdecision-makingskills

o How much time do Ineed to allow toachieve the focus?

o What first-handexternal cues do Ineed to pay attentionto?

o What time-basedperformanceindicators do I need toestablish?

o How can these time-based performanceindicators be linked toa strategic outcome?

o What cycle times dowe need to compressto be competitive?

o How can we recognizeand reward people forembracing the conceptof ‘better value, faster’

o How can I lead byexample?

o How can I introducethe concepts of 90-daychange cycles andproject management?

o How can I avoid the‘learning organization’trap of ‘all dialogueand little closure’?

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RREESSOOUURRCCEESS AANNDD SSEELLEECCTTEEDD

BBIIBBLLIIOOGGRRAAPPHHYY

References on Chapter 1: Focus

Jack Welch, see “The GE Way Fieldbook” by Robert Slater, McGraw HillPublishing

Rosa Parks, see www.achievement.org

Sam Walton, see “Made in America – My Story” by Sam Walton with JohnHuey; Doubleday

Fred Smith, see www.fedex.com and www.achievement.org

Crisis management, see FastCompany.com: ‘Masters of Disaster’...

8 Turnaround experts discuss how to deal with a crisis

http://www.fastcompany.com/online/45/one.html

Difference between leading and managing, see “Pathways to Performance” by JimClemmer, Chapter 3 – The High Performance Balance: Managing Things andLeading People, Macmillan Canada Publishers

The web is changing constantly. By the time you read this, some of these linksmay be redundant.

FOR AN UPDATED LIST OF LINKS VISIT:

http://www.FacetLeadership.com

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References on Chapter 2: Authenticity

Joseph Jaworski, see “Synchronicity – The Inner Path of Leadership” by JosephJawaorski; Berrett-Koehler Publishers

Shambala Institute for Authentic Leadership

http://www.shambhalainstitute.org/

Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership

http://greenleaf.org/index.html

American Leadership Forum

http://www.alfnational.org/

FastCompany.com see... ‘A leader's journey’

http://www.fastcompany.com/online/25/wieand.html

Authenticity & Leadership...What is the connection?

Ivy Sea Online

http://www.refresher.com/!authenticity.html

Lessons in Authentic Leadership

by Daniel D. Elash, Ph.D. and James R. Long, Ph.D.

http://www.refresher.com/!authenticleadership.html

Moral Leadership: A Pipedream?

by Lawrence E. Wharton

http://www.refresher.com/!moralleadership.html

Collins and Porras, see “Built to Last – Successful Habits of Visionary Companies” byJames C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras; Harper Business

Bolman and Deal, see “Leading with Soul – An Uncommon Journey of Spirit” by LeeG. Bolman and Terrence E. Deal; Jossey-Bass Publishers

Carlos Ghosn, see http://www.nissandriven.com/ and

http://www.findarticles.com/cf_atinds/m3012/2_181/70935219/p1/article.jhtml

The web is changing constantly. By the time you read this, some of these linksmay be redundant.

FOR AN UPDATED LIST OF LINKS VISIT:

http://www.FacetLeadership.com

102

References on Chapter 3: Courage

Peter Senge, see “The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook” by Peter Senge et al; DoubledayCurrency

Geoffrey Ballard, see www.ballard.com

General Hydrogen

http://www.generalhydrogen.com/html/directors.html

Cutting Emissions: New Fuel for Cars

http://cbc.ca/insidecbc/newsinreview/feb98/emission/index.htm

Powering the Future (Book about Ballard Systems)

Interview with the author Tom Koppel - Parts 1 and 2

http://www.evworld.com/archives/interviews2/tkoppel1.html

http://www.evworld.com/archives/interviews2/tkoppel2.html

CIO.com – ‘Brave Hearts, Courage and Integrity are at the core of leadership’

http://www.cio.com/archive/110100_lead.html

Find Articles.com - Interview with Carlos Ghosn: ‘Ghosn to the rescue'

http://www.findarticles.com/cf_atinds/m3012/2_181/70935219/p1/article.jhtml

FastCompany.com ‘What Is Courage?’

William Ian Miller wrote the book on courage (The Mystery of Courage) --literally -- and even he calls it a mystery.

by Harriet Rubin

http://www.fastcompany.com/online/55/courage.html

The web is changing constantly. By the time you read this, some of these linksmay be redundant.

FOR AN UPDATED LIST OF LINKS VISIT:

http://www.FacetLeadership.com

References on Chapter 4: Empathy

Robert Greenleaf, see Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership

http://greenleaf.org/index.html and ‘Insights on Leadership’, Larry C. Spears(Ed.); John Wiley & Sons

Bill Pollard, see ‘The Soul of the Firm’ by C. William Pollard; HarperBusiness/Zondervan

Herb Kelleher, see ‘A Culture of Commitment’ by Herb Kelleher

Drucker Foundation for Non-Profits, Leader to Leader, No. 4 Spring 1997

http://www.pfdf.org/leaderbooks/L2L/spring97/kelleher.html

Southwest Airlines: http://iflyswa.com/

Business Week Top 25 Managers of the Year 2001

http://www.businessweek.com/2001/01_02/b3714015.htm

Harrison Owen and Open Space:

http://www.openspaceworld.org/

‘Open Space Technology – A User’s Guide’ and

‘Expanding Our Now – The Story of Open Space Technology’

both by Harrison Owen; Berrett-Koehler Publishers Inc.

Women's Ways of Mentoring

by Cheryl Dahle

http://www.fastcompany.com/online/17/womentoring.html

The web is changing constantly. By the time you read this, some of these linksmay be redundant.

FOR AN UPDATED LIST OF LINKS VISIT:

http://www.FacetLeadership.com

104

References on Chapter 5: Timing

FastCompany.com: ‘It's About Time’ by Jill Rosenfeld

17 people talk about the use of time...some contrarian views.

http://www.fastcompany.com/online/29/one.html

Business Today interview with George Stalk 'It is the relative speed that counts'

http://www.india-today.com/BTODAY/07071999/intrview.html

FastCycle.com: Article 'The dark side of speed'

http://www.fastcycle.com/htm/Speed.htm

Lou Gerstner, see www.ibm.com/lvg/

Tom Peters, see www.tompeters.com

The web is changing constantly. By the time you read this, some of these linksmay be redundant.

FOR AN UPDATED LIST OF LINKS VISIT:

http://www.FacetLeadership.com

SSEELLFF-- AASSSSEESSSSMMEENNTT IINNSSTTRRUUMMEENNTTSS

Available from www.Training-Store.com:

• Authenticity: DiSC® Management Profile and Leadership 363 Profile

• Courage: Coping and Stress Profile®

• Empathy: Personal Listening Profile®, Team Dimensions Profile®

• Timing: Time Mastery Profile™

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AABBOOUUTT TTHHEE AAUUTTHHOORRBrian Ward is co-founder and President of AffinityConsulting and Training Inc., a Canadian HR coaching,consulting and training organization based in Edmonton,Alberta. His FOCUS is ‘Making People Stronger’.

He has over 30 years experience in the areas of humanresources and total quality management. He has consulted tovarious sectors including banking, manufacturing, healthcare, insurance,education, retail, government, oil & gas, and non-profit.

He assists leaders and their teams build stronger high performanceorganizations, through a combination of leadership coaching, consulting, andworkshops. A downloadable catalogue of workshops is available atwww.affinitymc.com/Catalog.pdf

If you would like to discuss setting up a workshop or leadership developmentprogram based on The FACET Leadership Model™ contact Brian atbrianward@affinitymc.com or toll free by phone at 1-877-432-8182, or visit hiswebsite at www.affinitymc.com