800 CEO Read

April 10, 2013

Personality and Presence

Filed under: Uncategorized — Sally @ 1:03 pm

We’ve all experienced it. Maybe it was one of your professors from college who inspired you to get up before noon and actually attend her class every week. Maybe it was that actor, in that film, not the main star, but the other guy. Maybe it was one of the panelists at the conference who you wished would answer every question. Regardless, you know it when you see it: star power. And it’s hard to explain. Is it charisma? Is it confidence? Whatever it is, you want it. And the good news is that the following two books can help you get it.

Personality Power: Discover Your Unique Profile — And Unlock Your Potential For Breakthrough Success by Shoya Zichy with Ann Bidou is a new book from Amacom that fans of books like Strengthsfinder 2.0 by Tom Rath and Quiet by Susan Cain should gravitate toward. Zichy has come up with a “Color Q” model of the four major personality groups first delineated by Jung and then adapted via the Myers-Briggs. Zichy takes those same traits and color codes them:

Golds are Grounded, realistic, and accountable
Blues are Theoretical, competitive, and always driven to acquire more knowledge
Reds are Action-oriented, spontaneous, and focused on “now”
Greens are Creative, empathetic, and humanistic

After taking the quizzes, you will find one primary and one secondary style, as well as determining whether you are introverted or extroverted. The book then focuses on defining the colors as well as delving into the different combinations of the colors that all get their own chapter on how that personality combination can help you in a variety of work scenarios like negotiation. It can also be a guide to help managers and team leaders determine which employees will be best at certain tasks.

Own the Room: Discover Your Signature Voice to Master Your Leadership Presence by Amy Jen Su and Muriel Maignan Wilkins is new out this month from Harvard Business Review Press. The authors posit that the number one quality that differentiates leaders and new hires from other folks isn’t some kind of innate and rare gift of presence, but instead is the development of a “signature voice.” The authors present a methodology called ACE:

A Signature Voice is both authentic and adaptive. You must be true to yourself and connect with others. This is the signature part.
A Signature Voice requires using two voices: the ability to demonstrate one’s value and distinctiveness and the ability to connect and align with stakeholders. This is the voice part.
To condition presence, you have to focus on your whole self: assumptions, communications, and energy.

The authors, both executive coaches, offer many case studies to walk you through the application of their framework, and include a section that can help you when you back-slide (which despite one’s best intentions can realistically happen.) The book concludes with a chapter on taking this ACE method and using it organizationally. The book is chock full of tables, quizzes and charts to help readers visualize and create action plans.

***

The common factor between these two books, Personality Power and Own the Room is that they both encourage you to be yourself, but assist you in becoming your best self.

Comments Off

April 5, 2013

Friday Links

Filed under: Friday Links — dylan @ 4:09 pm

➻ Regular readers and those that know us well know that our business was born in an independent bookstore, Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops, here in Milwaukee, and that those stores closed in 2009. The that know us really well know that former bookseller, book buyer, and general manager of those stores, Daniel Goldin, kept the Downer Avenue location alive as Boswell Book Company. For those looking for an update on how that venture is going, Claire Hanan penned an article on the Goldin Boy for Milwaukee Magazine. (Hint: it’s going really—maybe even magically—well.)

Without Goldin or Boswell, [Brent] Gohde says, “There would be an awful void in the literary culture of Milwaukee.” Part of that is the “magic” of bookselling. “The right bookselling experience is really intense,” Goldin says, and “just stays with you forever.”

He witnessed that magic during his Schwartz days: “You get a bunch of younger people working together, they’re all really creative, they’re all really engaged, they all like community stuff, and you think—holy cow!—there can’t be anything like this in the world.”

But there is. Halley, one of his young booksellers, recently told Goldin she thought Boswell had the magic, too. Goldin, of course, was dubious. But if the opinions of the myriad bookworms who step into Boswell are to be trusted, she might be on to something.

That Brent Gohde fellow quoted above is an old Schwartzy, and just happens to be putting on an Alverno Presents production this month called May the Schwartz Be With You celebrating the old bookshops and all they’ve done for Milwaukee culture. Also, if you’re interested, Rebecca Rego Barry of Fine Books & Manuscripts has Ten Reasons a Pessimist Can be Optimistic About the Future of the Book, but a Kindle ain’t one.

➻ Being a bookseller is certainly a noble calling, but salespeople in other fields often get a bad rap. In a recent installment of strategy + business‘s Author’s Choice series, Mastering the Complex Sale author Jeff Thull says You Gotta Serve Somebody, and introduces an excerpt from Dan Pink’s To Sell is Human: The Surprising Truth about Moving Others that “overturns negative stereotypes about sales.” He writes:

Let’s … set aside outdated sales stereotypes once and for all. I’ve always found that the most successful sales professionals are what Dan Pink would call servant sellers. In the excerpt that follows, Pink hits the nail on the head when he quotes Robert Greenleaf’s vision of servant leadership—“do no harm…listen first…accept and empathize”—as a model for sales professionals. … The thinking and behavior of top salespeople are a close match to those of the best doctors. They diagnose and prescribe while keeping the well-being of their clients foremost in their minds.

Thull’s choice is a good one; To Sell is Human won the Marketing & Sales category of our business book awards last year. Here’s the greatest nugget of the excerpt:

An effective seller isn’t a “huckster, who is just out for profit,” [Alfred Fuller once] said. The true “salesman is an idealist and an artist.”

So, too, is the true person. Among the things that distinguish our species from others is our combination of idealism and artistry—our desire both to improve the world and to provide that world with something it didn’t know it was missing. Moving others doesn’t require that we neglect these nobler aspects of our nature. Today it demands that we embrace them. It begins and ends by remembering that to sell is human.

This is especially true of booksellers, I think. Daniel Goldin and the sales staff of Boswell Books and the old Schwartz stores—specifically Stacie Michelle Williams, Carl Hoffman, and Sarah Godsave—have all provided me with “something it didn’t know it was missing” in literature. All have introduced me to new authors, new ideas, and made my life richer with their recommendations.

➻ TED has carved out a very large space in “ideas worth spreading”—at times too large, it seems. Some of the ideas presented at TEDx events are, in fact, not worth worth spreading at all. Some of the ideas are fanciful, as in not true or, as Stanford professor Jay Wacker put it, “Such f—ing bullsh-t.” Nilofer Merchant, author of the excellent book The New How, wrote recently in the Harvard Business Review about what happened When TED Lost Control of Its Crowd, concluding:

Anyone leading an organization today is already managing a crowd—whether it’s composed of consumers, the media, or citizens of the towns in which the enterprise operates. What TED faced is the new reality for all of us. “Nothing is predictable,” Stein concludes. “This flies in the face of leaders’ being asked to plan and predict and know more than others. Today we have to create scale for our mission by being open. The TEDx construct is an example of how being in a community lets us learn, adapt, and grow together.”

Even though management experts have long argued for looser organizational models and against command-and-control leadership, most executives are still ill equipped to manage crowds. As humans, we want to be perfect and in control. We like knowing more than we enjoy learning. We want to get it right the first time rather than iterate. But crowds—and the community constructs we’re talking about—are not about flawless execution; they are about allowing anyone (quite possibly everyone) to contribute and gathering a large volume of potentially powerful ideas from which to pick the best.

And the community is still growing.

➻ For those of you enjoying Masterpiece’s Mr. Selfridge, maybe you’ll want to know know How Mr. Selfridge Created the Modern Economy, and even, perhaps, how the department store supported early feminism? Virginia Postrel at Bloomberg has you covered:

When department stores were new, people understood that they were significant institutions—liberating in the eyes of some, threatening or corrupting to others, but obviously important. Nowadays, we treat shopping as silly stuff. “When I tell people I’ve written on shopping, I still get giggles,” says [historian Erika] Rappaport, whose 2000 book Shopping for Pleasure describes the development of retailing in London’s West End, focusing particularly on women shoppers. “People are uncomfortable: ‘that’s not real history.’”

But ignoring consumer culture produces a bizarre mental picture of the Industrial Revolution that features textile factories but includes no one buying or selling clothes. By downplaying the pleasures of newly inexpensive goods and the shops that sold them, the production-only version of history also misses the everyday meaning of a rising standard of living—the satisfaction, for instance, of having multiple outfits, or even a variety of hat trimmings, that allow you to express your mood or personality.

“The appeal just of the stuff is a really major part of all of this, and that of course is only made possible by manufacturing,” says Linda M. Scott, a professor at Oxford’s Said Business School and the author of Fresh Lipstick, a history of the relationship between feminism and the American beauty and fashion economy. In researching the book, Scott says she was surprised to discover just how important the desire for cash to spend on consumer goods was in drawing young women out of domestic service and into factories. “Even middle-class girls who weren’t supposed to work would talk, in interviews and letters, about envying the working-class girls,” she says. “Because if you couldn’t work you could only get the stuff you wanted by manipulating a man.

[...]

For the early women’s movement, department stores were “flash points, places where it mattered,” says Scott. “Mr. Selfridge” hints at the connection when Lady Mae, the hero’s fictional patron, demands a reciprocal favor: a weekly luncheon for suffragettes in the store’s Palm Court tearoom and the sale of suffragette merchandise in the store.

The real Selfridge’s did carry such goods, including Suffrage Christmas Crackers, and department stores on both sides of the Atlantic furnished meeting spaces for women’s groups. The U.K’s most radical suffragettes ran fashion articles and ads in their journals, and they broke store windows not to protest fashionable images of women but, on the contrary, because they knew stores cared about their business. “They understood,” says Rappaport, “that women had power in that sphere.”

Also, did you know that the real Mr. Selfridge wrote a book? Even better, it’s called The Romance of Commerce.

➻ I love Roger Ebert, and of all the tributes that have been making the rounds since his death, The Onion writing that Roger Ebert Hails Human Existence As ‘A Triumph’ is my favorite:

Calling the overall human experience “poignant,” “thought-provoking,” and a “complete tour de force,” film critic Roger Ebert praised existence Thursday as “an audacious and thrilling triumph.” “While not without its flaws, life, from birth to death, is a masterwork, and an uplifting journey that both touches the heart and challenges the mind,” said Ebert, adding that while the totality of all humankind is sometimes “a mess in places,” it strives to be a magnum opus and, according to Ebert, largely succeeds at this goal. “At times brutally sad, yet surprisingly funny, and always completely honest, I wholeheartedly recommend existence. If you haven’t experienced it yet, then what are you waiting for? It is not to be missed.” Ebert later said that while human existence’s running time was “a little on the long side,” it could have gone on much, much longer and he would have been perfectly happy.

Sometimes satire just works best, and gets to the point quickest.

➻ Neat and strong.

Comments Off

How to Be Interesting

Filed under: Big Ideas,Book Reviews,Design,Personal Development — Jon @ 11:59 am

This week, Dylan and I went to go see Jessica Hagy speak at the wonderful Lynden Sculpture Garden. Hagy, an ex-advertising copywriter who now creates doodles and charts with keen observations on people and the situations they find themselves in, presented a summary of her “10 Simple Steps” from her new book How to Be Interesting (In 10 Simple Steps).

After enjoying her previous book Indexed, which consisted solely of pages of charts and minimal commentary, I was curious what her presentation might consist of. Silence, while hilarious charts appeared on screen? An attempt to verbalize the complexity of ideas within charts? The answer, a bit of both! But just as interesting as the formal presentation itself was Hagy’s informal chat about how she works and what she’s working toward. While most of her answers to the audience’s questions revolved around the internet, she also talked about observing different types of people in public situations, which usually provided inspiration during any period of writer’s (or doodler’s) block.

So, How to Be Interesting. The title is both funny and curious, and that’s exactly the talent Hagy has. Being interesting is a primal need, yet when do people really talk about this in a way that doesn’t have some kind of agenda behind it? In the book, there are very obvious, concrete statements combined with peripheral emotions, goals, and personality traits that we all have brushed with at one time or another. Consider this example:

Recall What Makes You Cry

A place. A person.
A creature. A song.
Now devote a little more of yourself
to that memory.

Hagy includes this not to come across as some lonely poet, but as a way for the reader to consider something that “Moves you to ACT up & SPEAK out.” In fact, the book is 100% about action, encouraging people to make the changes they want to make in their lives: be innovative, share, develop confidence, explore, try, fail, and ultimately succeed at being the best you can be. Change the world. That is, after all, what makes us interesting.

It was great to meet in person, but this was not our first interaction with the author. A few years ago over at ChangeThis, we published her manifesto, “Indexing a Career.” Check that out for starters, and then pick up a copy of her latest book, or a stack for your team. After all, don’t you want to work with an entire company of interesting people?

Comments Off

April 3, 2013

The Customer Rules: An Interview with Lee Cockerell

Filed under: Customer Service,Interviews,Leadership — Michael @ 10:05 am

Lee Cockerell’s new book, The Customer Rules, is a modest-looking volume of 39 ‘rules’ for providing outstanding customer service. Despite the book’s apparent simplicity, The Customer Rules offers readers essential advice ranging from the general—be nice—to the specific—never ever argue with a customer. While reading this book, I often found myself thinking, “Of course; this is a fundamental rule. Who doesn’t know this?” I then immediately had two additional thoughts. The first is that I feel fairly certain that there are millions of people who could benefit from reading this book. I’ve been on the receiving end of sub-par customer service more times than I care to remember, and my general feeling is usually something along the lines of, “I wish I had gone elsewhere.” Even if you’re at your favorite restaurant or shop, if the wait staff or clerk is doing a bad job, it ruins the experience. Perhaps it’s a bad attitude, or simply inexperience. Whatever the case, reading The Customer Rules can give under-performing service staff a chance to model great customer service.

The second thought is that even if you’re already providing excellent service, you very well might need a ‘refresher’. Much like a student of a religious text will read and reread the text in order to deepen his understanding and continue applying key principles, the quality of your customer service will benefit from periodical reminders. Page through The Customer Rules, pick a rule and task yourself with applying it consciously. This book is a tool for experienced service staff too, something to help keep your level of service at its very best.

Below are Lee’s responses to five questions inspired by reading The Customer Rules and by Lee’s reputation for leadership and excellence. Thanks, Lee, for taking the time to share these insights with us!

Creating Magic was a book for leaders. Reading The Customer Rules, I feel like this book is for not just leaders, but for everyone in the organization. Was it your goal to write something with broader application? How did the idea for this book come to you?

When I wrote Creating Magic I had just spent sixteen years as the senior executive of operations for Walt Disney World. When I first went to Disney in 1993, I was not satisfied with the leadership messaging for all of our leaders and potential leaders, so I developed a document titled Disney Great Leader Strategies. It became the bible for training and developing the 7000 leaders at Walt Disney World. This document had a powerful impact on the managers, helping them understand our expectations for world class leadership. The Disney Great Leader Strategies became the foundation for my book Creating Magic. While it was meant for leaders, it became quite popular at all levels of the organization, and especially with those who wanted to become managers and leaders in the future.

Creating Magic became very popular. It is now in thirteen languages around the world and continues to sell well. One day I was talking to Talia Krohn, my editor at Random House, and she suggested I write a second book on customer service, since that is what I had focused on for 41 years with Hilton Hotels, Marriott International and The Walt Disney Company. At first I did not want to write another book because it is a lot of hard work, and I am retired after all. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I had some great experience behind me and that I could help a lot of organizations. So I said, “Let’s do it,” and I began putting into writing what I had learned about delivering sensational service from my experience in my four decades with three world-class organizations. The Customer Rules can help everyone from top executives down to the front line employees who face the customer every day. Since the customer truly rules, everyone in every organization had better know the rules for serving them.

The new book leads with the admonition: be nice. Great advice! Is there a particular reason why you feel it bears mentioning?

I was talking to my 13 year old granddaughter one day as I was about to start writing this book. I said to her, “Margot, I am about to write a new book titled The Customer Rules. What do you think are the most important rules for customer service?” Without a second hesitation she said, “Well Papi, the first rule is ‘be nice.’” Children don’t have any problem getting right to the point. They are not over thinking everything. They get right down to the basics when you ask them a question. Clarity comes naturally to children. I have found out in my own career that if you are nice to people which means being friendly, polite, pleasant, appealing, kind, considerate, well mannered, and refined that they will give you the benefit of the doubt and forgive you if you don’t know something or don’t execute service for them perfectly. Even my granddaughter can tell you that!

There is a growing conversation in the world of business and economics about a shift to a largely service-oriented economy. Do you think companies are ready for this shift? Do you think the average level of service is good now, and where do you see it going in the future?

As the middle class continues to expand around the world there is a natural decline of manufacturing as businesses move their factories to where the wages and cost of business are lower. What’s left is a large middle class population with money to spend so there is more and more demand for service related businesses. It happens in country after country. What is interesting is that the use of robots and automated manufacturing is starting to become cheaper than human labor so we are seeing the first signs of some factory production returning to the US because the cost per hour of a robot is about the same as an hourly wage in China. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. This is a concerning trend as it will leave many less-educated hands-on workers with no jobs. This will mean that we must solve the education problem in America or unemployment will continue to stay high since the majority of future jobs will be in the service or technical fields where a higher level of education will be required to perform the work.

I don’t believe most companies are giving the level of service it will take to keep their customers. Most companies don’t understand the steps necessary to having a customer-centric culture and many don’t keep their CEOs long enough to develop and implement a customer-centric organization. It can’t be done overnight. Excellence takes time and effort. Most companies just focus on their products and not on their culture. You will see many of them bite the dust or be acquired in the next five years.

The book offers 39 rules for great customer service. If you had to pick just one of these rules to communicate to businesses worldwide, which would it be? What advice do businesses most need to hear, and of course—why?

Rule #3, Great Service Follows The Law of Gravity is the most important rule out of the 39, as far as I am concerned. What the boss wants gets done, and the boss is at the top of the organization. Not only do they need to want to have great service but they also must model that want in every way possible. The top person must talk about customer service relentlessly, they must support it with resources and they must constantly communicate with their customers and their employees to find out what they can do to support a customer-centric organization. The most important communication they can do is to listen intently to what their customers and employees are telling them and to get out into their businesses to find out the truth.

You have a long reputation for creating great customer experience and customer service. What has been your inspiration, in the workplace or otherwise?

I was fortunate enough to have a mother who would not stand for my brother and I doing something which we did not do well. Her favorite comment which we all have heard was, “If you are not going to do it right then don’t do it at all.” I also had a great mentor when I worked at the Waldorf Astoria in New York by the name of Gene Scanlan. He was a great role-model and teacher. He taught me about attention to detail and insisted that we always make every guest feel special as we tended to their every request and Waldorf guests demand perfection. I think one thing which drives me is that I have a very positive “can do” attitude and I am a bit compulsive so I want everything to be just right. I am also very disciplined and organized so I always have time to tend to every detail.

Lee Cockerell is the former Executive Vice President of Operations for the Walt Disney World^® Resort. Prior to spending ten years with Disney, Lee spent 8 years at Hilton and 17 years at Marriott. His first book, Creating Magic, which focuses on essential leadership strategies, has been translated into 13 languages. Lee now spends his time consulting for large companies worldwide, conducting leadership workshops, and speaking publicly. Learn more about Lee at his website: www.LeeCockerell.com.

Comments Off

April 2, 2013

Bring Your (Emotional) Self to Work

Filed under: Big Ideas,Personal Development — Tags: Cain, chodron, choice, depression, element, extrovert, happiness, inferno, introvert, Lyubomirsky, meditation, medititate, myth, Quiet, Robinson, Tam, wisdom, yoga — Sally @ 1:45 pm

Listen.
In every office
you hear the threads
of love and joy and fear and guilt,
the cries for celebration and reassurance,
and somehow you know that connecting those threads
is what you are supposed to do
and business takes care of itself.

The words above were written by James A. Autry and are included in Love and Profit: The Art of Caring Leadership, (page 32), published in the early 1990s. Autry’s book came out about a decade following In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best-Run Companies by Tom Peters and Robert H. Waterman, Jr., the book that we described in The 100 Best Business Books of All Time this way:

In writing In Search of Excellence, Peters and Waterman arrived at a conclusion about the success of an organization that couldn’t be more different from those early theories on business organization: people are irrational and the structures that organize them must account for that. This argument was 180 degrees counter to the historical modeling of business organizations after the military approach, in which managers fixated on the control of their homogeneous teams….Instead, Peters and Waterman advocate humanistic values, including meaning, a small amount of control, and positive reinforcement as a postmilitaristic model. The conclusion is that the soft stuff matters. Culture matters. People matter.

Now, it is 2013, and while your mileage may vary regarding the message Sheryl Sandberg is purveying to women via her new book, Lean In, I’m a fan, and many of Sandberg’s modern encouragements have stuck with me in the two weeks since I read the book. But none more than her brief section on bringing your whole self to work. In our Jack Covert Selects review, we included this passage from “Seek and Speak Your Truth.”

It has been an evolution, but I am now a true believer in bringing our whole selves to work. I no longer think people have a professional self for Mondays through Fridays and a real self for the rest of the time. That type of separation probably never existed, and in today’s era of individual expression … it makes even less sense.

If Peters and Waterman’s work marked the time when organizations became less fearful of loosening the bonds and began creating workplaces that acknowledged and worked ‘with’ our humanness, and Autry encouraged leaders to get the human stuff right in order to make the business stuff right, then Sandberg challenges each of us personally to integrate all aspects of ourselves.

So what does this mean for us? For all workers (not only women)? Does “bringing our whole selves to work” mean simply conversing about our lives outside of the office while in the office? And to whom? To our peers? To our clients? To our managers? Or does it mean something more visceral like exposing our tattoos and wearing those fishnet tights usually reserved for the weekend? Or does it really mean that we ourselves need to recognize that we are just people, people with emotions, who get angry at slights, cry when frustrated, become distracted when a child is sick, and even if it makes us feel vulnerable, that’s the person we bring to work with us every day. Sandberg again:

Sharing emotions builds deeper relationships. Motivation comes from working on things we care about. It also comes from working with people we care about. To really care about others, we have to understand them–what they like and dislike, what they feel as well as think. Emotion drives both men and women and influences every decision we make. Recognizing the role emotions play and being willing to discuss them makes us better managers, partners, and peers.

I suppose the point is that whatever it means to us is what it means. But the overall point is that to feel more is to be more. And if that sounds a little Zen, then that’s a good opening for recommending these new/current titles that can help you find just what integration means to you.

If you long for, or have to deal with, any of the following emotions that can (and should?) have a direct impact on our work lives, then these next books can help you bring your whole (emotional) selves to work. Below you’ll find a link to our site with more information about the book, a brief synopsis from the publisher, and a quote directly from the book that exemplifies both the idea and the style of the writing.

Finding Your Element: How to Discover Your Talents and Passions and Transform Your Life by Ken Robinson with Lou Aronica (Viking Books, May 2013.) The New York Times-bestselling author of The Element gives readers an inspirational and practical guide to self-improvement, happiness, creativity, and personal transformation.

“The gift of being human is that we have deep creative resources and from these we can continuously transform our lives if we choose. Whether you aim to change the whole world or the world within you, the limits are set as much by your imagination as by your current circumstances. This has been true for all people since the beginnings of human history.”

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain (Crown, 2013 pbk.) This extraordinary book has the power to permanently change how we see introverts and, equally important, how introverts see themselves.

“The secret to life is to put yourself in the right lighting. For some it’s a Broadway spotlight; for others, a lamplit desk. Use your natural powers–of persistence, concentration, insight, and sensitivity–to do work you love and work that matters. Solve problems, make art, think deeply. [...] Figure out what you are meant to contribute to the world and make sure you contribute it. If this requires public speaking or networking or other activities that make you uncomfortable, do them anyway. But accept that they’re difficult, get the training you need to make them easier, and reward yourself when you’re done.”

David’s Inferno: My Journey through the Dark Wood of Depression by David Blistein (Hatherleigh, 2013.) Author David Blistein, a former ad agency executive, shares his experiences to shed light on the darkness of depression for fellow travelers as well as those who care about them.

“Then I start thinking about writing this little piece. And then about going in the house and getting another cup of tea. And then coming back out and writing something else. And then having breakfast. And then taking a nap! Gee, I’m feeling pretty good. I’m feeling inspired. [...] All pretty trivial. But for someone with a history of depression, there’s nothing trivial about it. Because, at least for me, the opposite of being depressed isn’t really being happy, it’s being inspired. Full, as the etymologists would explain, of divine breath.

How to Meditate: A Practical Guide to Making Friends with Your Mind by Pema Chodron (SoundsTrue, May 2013.) More and more people are beginning to recognize a profound inner longing for authenticity, connection, compassion, and aliveness. Meditation, Pema explains, gives us a golden key to address this yearning.

“So perhaps you only have ten minutes that you can commit to meditation. Just ten minutes can help you come to your senses or slow down enough that your natural intelligence, or your basic goodness–the part of you that knows what the right action at any given time might be–can click in.”

Yoga Wisdom at Work: Finding Sanity Off the Mat and On the Job by Maren Showkeir and Jamie Showkeir (Berrett-Kohler, May 2013.) The Showkeirs know firsthand how yoga’s wisdom can make work—and life—more rewarding and worthwhile.

“The sheer amount of stuff we are asked to attend to in our daily lives can be overwhelming. But when people say they lack the physicality to put their bodies into yoga poses, they are not taking into account that it is the practice that develops flexibility, balance, and a quiet mind. [...] In any case, yoga on the mat is only one part of the practice–one-eighth to be exact. [T]he physical practice, or asana, doesn’t represent the spectrum of yoga any more than looking through a knothole in a fence and seeing a pitcher throw and catch a ball gives you a complete picture of a baseball game’s nine innings.

The Happiness Choice: The 5 Decisions That Will Take You From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be by Marilyn Tam (Wiley, 2013.) Discover the path to a happy life, from a woman who overcame the odds and achieved a joyful life.

“You wake before the alarm, turn over, and then it hits you–you are already behind on what you have to do today. Out of bed you rush to get ready, grab something to eat, gulp down some coffee and zoom your nerves are already vibrating at hyper speed. At the end of the long and exhausting day, you fall into bed bone-tired and weary, feeling that you didn’t accomplish many of the things you had to do, much less the ones that you wanted to do. Sigh, is this the life I was born to live, you wonder. [...] No! You have a choice; you can live the life that you’ve dreamed of living. You can choose happiness.”

The Myths of Happiness: What Should Make You Happy, but Doesn’t; What Shouldn’t Make You Happy, but Does by Sonja Lyubonirsky (Penguin Press, 2013.) Sonja Lyubomirsky turns an empirical eye to the biggest, messiest moments, providing readers with the clear-eyed vision they need to build the healthiest, most satisfying life.

“I cannot stress enough how unfortunate and needless are these deleterious consequences of believing in the happiness myths. We must stop waiting for happiness, and we must stop being terrified of the potential for unhappiness.”

Comments Off

March 29, 2013

Friday Links

Filed under: Friday Links — dylan @ 4:15 pm

Friday Links has been on hiatus for quite awhile now while I went to Japan with the wife, completed our annual review of the finest business books of 2012, and then took some time off to spend with my first child. That hiatus ends today.

➻ First up, as Amazon Buys Goodreads, let’s take look at a quote from the Goodreads team’s letter to its users (as reported by Rachel Deahl and Jim Milliot of Publisher’s Weekly) to see if we can gauge their reason for selling:

By joining the Amazon family, the Goodreads team will be able to invest more in the things that our members care about. We’ll also be working together on inventing new services for readers and authors. As part of this, we’ll be increasing the size of our team over time, and will be able to add lots of great new features that members and librarians will be excited about! … We said in our blog post that our team gets out of bed every day motivated by the belief that the right book in the right hands can change the world. Now Goodreads can help make that happen in an even bigger and more meaningful way as part of the Amazon family.

There are a few enthusiastic users of Goodreads here at 8cr, and we’re certainly big believers that “the right book in the right hands can change the world,” so we wish the Goodreads team the best of luck continuing their good work under the tutelage of the ever-expanding Amazon Empire.

➻ Of course, not all Goodreads users are fans of the news. Our friend John Ecklund’s survey of the publishing scene got a little grimmer upon learning the news, an attitude summed up in the headline of his post this morning: Goodreads Joins “Amazon family.” Please. Just in case the cynical quotation marks and sardonically placed please didn’t communicate his feelings well enough, here’s more:

Once, when I was a bookseller, I sent out an April Fool’s fax announcing that a German conglomerate was buying Random House and was turning it into a cog in a quest for worldwide media domination. It seemed so preposterous that it was funny, until it happened a couple years later.

I wanted to do an April Fool’s blog post today but Goodreads and Amazon beat me to the punch. And we don’t even have to wait to find out the joke is on us!

For those that will inevitably wonder where the joke is in all this, Ecklund explains:

One of the clever things about social media is that it facilitates backlash when something ugly or sneaky is underway, and I can’t think of anything nastier right now in the book world than the prospect of this behemoth acquiring even more intimate knowledge of my buying habits than it already has. Enough is enough.

I don’t begrudge the Goodreads entrepreneurs their decision to sell. The phrase “social media” may imply some sort of common good philosophy, outside the reach of filthy lucre. But like everything else under capitalism, even a somewhat charming and innocent website for aggregating reading lists has its price. Sure, partnering with indie booksellers, libraries, book media or other players would have been more in keeping with that collaborative ethos so bragged on by young techie entrepreneurs. But then, money is money.

And I suppose books are books, but seeing that Amazon [is] Still Featuring Porn as “Teen Books for Girls” four months after a customer complaint, lets hope the good folks of Goodreads keep up their own quality controls on book recommendations and steer clear of Amazon’s algorithms.

➻ Aaron Stanton, founder and CEO of BookLamp.org and the Book Genome Project, reacted to the Goodreads/Amazon news from another angle, writing Hats Off to You, Bookish: Goodreads Acquisition Validates the Bookish Strategy. And here’s why:

It goes to show that to some degree, Bookish is being successful at one of its primary roles already, regardless of its actual success at gaining traffic (which remains to be seen); it provides a foil in the conversation about the role of publishers in retail and the online space. In fact, in that sense, the timing of the acquisition coming shortly after Bookish’s launch is really well-suited. Can you imagine the discussion today had Bookish still been delayed when this happened? Or five months from now, when Bookish’s launch buzz had faded a bit and the daily grind of building a successful site was underway? Either way, it’s clear that Bookish is a different beast in the space, if nothing else because it seems unlikely that its long-term goal is to simply grow large and eventually be purchased as part of an exit strategy. Whether Bookish.com will ultimately be successful at occupying mindshare and traffic, or whether it’s the right “next contender” in the space, remains to be seen. [...] I do believe this, though … Goodreads’ step out of the independent space leaves a vacuum for someone else to step into, but they won’t do it by trying to repeat more of what Goodreads already does. It’s going to have to be something fundamentally different.

But in the mean time, hat’s off to you, Bookish. Well done.

The praise may be premature, but I think Mr. Stanton is right that Bookish does show that traditional publishers are at least making an effort to stem the tide of Amazon’s influence over the industry.

➻ BrainPickings’ Maria Popova reminds us of the importance of the human touch, and so much else, in her review of (fellow Milwaukeean) Faythe Levine and Sam Macon’s Sign Painters. Writing about What a Disappearing Art Teaches Us About Creative Purpose and Process, she says:

In many ways, the individual journeys of the featured painters embody Daniel Pink’s concept of autonomy, mastery, and purpose as the trifecta of success.

A quote from Keith Knecht “who passed away in 2011 and to whom the book is lovingly dedicated,” Papova tells us “frames the historical context of sign painting as an intersection of art and commerce.” More simply put, it reminds us that the art of marketing and advertising began, quite literally, with the art of putting paint to wood in a eye-catching way. From Keith Knecht:

Sign painting, as we know it here in America, is a good 150 years old. It all started when growers and manufacturers began to brand their products. Before that, if you needed flour, you went to the general store and the shop owner would have a barrel of flour and would fill up a canvas bag for you. Manufacturers realized that they had to market their products to show that their goods were better than the competition. That’s when Gold Medal flour, Morton Salt, and other brands were introduced. In 1840 there weren’t big advertising agencies on Madison Avenue designing logos and creating campaigns for these companies. Sign painters designed these logos.

At the end of a great post filled with interesting quotes from artists, intriguing pictures, and an inspriational trailer to the documentary, we have Papova to put it in all in a poetic context and bring it to a purpose-filled conclusion.

[U]nderpinning the entire cross-section of sign artists is a quiet yet unflinching testament to the ethos that the best kind of success is the one you define yourself, based not on prestige or money but on process and happiness. And what makes Sign Painters particularly alluring is its focus on something so tangible and lasting, on permanent atoms in the age of ephemeral bits, reminding us that these artists are not remnants of a bygone era in the evolution of creative culture but a vital signpost pointing in the unchanging [direction] of what’s truly and everlastingly human.

The line about the allure of “something so tangible and lasting, on permanent atoms in the age of ephemeral bits” also happen to perfectly describe the spell physical books have over me.

➻ Writing cleverly about the spectrum of substance and speculation, and of “a place where relationships have become purely transactional,” George Packer talks about When the Money Gets Too Big and does it all in the midst of a wonderful review of Anthony Trollope’s The Way We Live Now. In doing so, he brilliantly exposes the moral relativity and ambiguity of decadent—yet still fundamentally democratic—societies.

Greed can be the leading wedge of freedom.

Something similar is true of the glittering capital of an American empire perched on a speculative bubble. There’s no limit to the money accumulating at the top of New York (and other centers of wealth), no limit to the fascination it exercises over the rest of the country. Every time it seems as if the tide of fantastic wealth is going out—after 2008 was the most recent moment—it surges back, higher than ever. Greed is eternal, but when the money flows as plentifully upward as in London circa 1873 or New York circa 2013, and is as unequally distributed, it becomes a moral toxin, saturates the world of culture, makes relationships more competitive, turns desire into the pursuit of status, replaces solid things with mirages.

And, as in Trollope’s London, money and its pursuit can have a democratizing effect. Old social codes, some worthy and some iniquitous, give way because money makes them matter less. Formerly oppressed groups, once-despised minorities, and the foreign-born, along with wife-beaters and ex-drug dealers, all have a shot at the top in a society that is much less equal and much more free than the one most of us grew up in. Scandal, cheating, and even crime are only short-term obstacles—there’s always a second chance if you’re the head of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc. Richard Fuld of Lehman Brothers and Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs were in the same business, doing the same things, until 2008—now the first is a disgraced pariah while the second continues to receive White House invitations and sit on philanthropic boards. The only difference is between failure and success. You have to go bad to the extent of a Madoff, or a Melmotte—that is, you have to lose your money, along with everyone else’s—to be banished from the game for good.

It’s not often I believe I would enjoy a review more than the book it’s reviewing, but I think Packer has done just that here. Of course I’ll never know, as the chances of me reading Trollope’s The Way We Live Now in this life are slim to none.

➻ Finally, and more positively, we have Susan Dominus looking at Adam Grant’s upcoming book, Give and Take, and asking Is Giving the Secret to Getting Ahead?

➻ And speaking of giving, that sound you hear is coming from a 100-year-old banjo.

Comments Off

Thinker in Residence: Erika Andersen on Business & Books

Filed under: Uncategorized — Sally @ 1:07 pm

POST & WIN! Post a reaction or question for Erika in one of her Thinker in Residence posts, and not only will Erika pop by for the discussion, but we’ll randomly pick one participant to win a copy of Leading So People Will Follow!

In our past two Thinker in Residence posts featuring the thoughtful and motivating work of Erika Andersen, we introduced you to her newest book on leadership, Leading So People Will Follow, and also shared an in-depth Q&A with Erika about strategy. We would be remiss if we didn’t also recommend her first book, Growing Great Employees, which we chose as one of the best business books written in 2007. Here’s what we said:

Growing Great Employees is an incredible primer to teach new managers the skills they need to be successful. Erika describes her book as “Good to Great meets Marcus Buckingham in the form of a Boy Scouts Handbook.” The book covers needed skills like hiring, listening, delegating, and yes, firing. Her advice is clear and direct. Managers, new and old, would benefit from reading this one.

We also asked Erika if she could give us an idea of what motivates her to do the work she does and why there is value to be found in business literature.

Q: What is the one unanswered question about business you are most interested in answering?

EA: There are two – and they’re actually the unanswered questions about life I’m most interested in answering – I just spend a good deal of my time looking for the answers in the realm of business. The questions are “How does this work?” and “How can we make it work better?” It would be fair to say that everything I’ve created or co-created in my business, and certainly all three of my books, are nothing more or less than extended efforts to answer those questions. I get tremendous satisfaction from being able to crack the code on some aspect of human behavior or organizational function, and then give people practical guidance and support for improvement.

Q: What business book has influenced your work the most?

EA: Without a doubt, Good to Great by Jim Collins. I continue to re-read parts of it over the years, and to recommend it to new generations of leaders. It really does what it purports to do: captures the essence of how to make a company great. And it’s so engaging and straightforward, and uses the power of story so well, that even people who don’t like business books in general can get a lot out of it.

Q: What is the business book you wish you had written and why?

EA: Hmmm. That’s a tough one – I’m not aware of wanting to have written a specific book that now exists. I would, however, love to write a book that doesn’t exist (and perhaps never will, sadly). I’d love to write a book that somehow magically helps senior executives fully understand how critical it is, both on a human level and a business success level, for them to be excellent managers and leaders, and (again magically) inspires them to devote the time, effort, and self-reflection required to become the best leaders and managers they’re capable of being.

We had the pleasure of including an essay by Erika in our 2007 edition of our annual review, In the Books, that we think is still quite relevant today. Here she advocates in favor of business books and gives us a lesson in their history and value.

Why We Love Business Books More Than Ever BY ERIKA ANDERSEN

Around 1500, a guy named Machievelli wrote a book called Il Principe. It could be argued that this tough-minded little volume was the first classic business book of the western world. It was a wild time: he was advising various warring Popes and secular rulers—the Jack Welches and Sumner Redstones of his time—and Machiavelli offered advice he thought would be most helpful to them in consolidating their power and creating thriving and profitable governments. Though it’s now mostly read as a cautionary tale, an example of how NOT to lead, hundreds of generations of leaders have absorbed its lessons, and the business book was born.

The next few hundred years of western civilization (this phrase always reminds me of Gandhi’s response as to his view of western civilization: “I think it would be a good idea,” he said…but I digress) produced a few other volumes of political and economic wisdom. In 1609, for instance, Hugo Grotius published Mare Liberum (The Free Sea), which helped to establish the foundations of international law by formulating the new principle that the sea was international territory and all nations should be free to
use it for seafaring trade. Adam Smith’s An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, was one of the earliest attempts to systematically study the development of industry and commerce in Europe, and offered rationales for free trade, capitalism and libertarianism. It seemed that only a handful of people felt compelled to share their thoughts about business, and that a slightly larger handful read them.

It wasn’t until the 20th century that the business book began to emerge as an actual category. In the early 1900s, two books on business became standards in the libraries of America’s captains of industry: Henry Ford’s My Life and Work, and a book by a man named Henri Fayol, called General and Industrial Management. They offered very different opinions on business and management (Henry Ford deeply distrusted managers, though he treated his front line workers much better than most of his contemporaries, while Fayol talked about management as one of the six key elements of business success), but both focused on providing personal insights into how business should be done.

Through the ’40s, ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, the number of books published about business gradually increased. Still, by today’s standards, business books had a relatively modest readership: in 1975, about 300 new business book titles were published in the US, with overall sales for the business category of just over a million volumes.

Then in the early ’80s, the whole business of business books changed—quite suddenly and dramatically: the bellwether book of this change was Tom Peters and Robert Waterman’s In Search of Excellence, which became the first bona fide business best seller. And over the past 25 years, the business book category has literally exploded: in 2006, almost 11,000 new business books were ublished in the U.S., with total business book sales of over $800,000,000.

Why this ever-increasing appetite for business books?

THERE’S GOLD IN THEM THAR HILLS
Part of the explanation, I believe, can be found in the current American mythology that business is the best and most reliable road to fame, fortune and happiness. In fact, this mythology seems to have largely replaced other American mythologies about achieving success, such as “the overnight star,” “marrying rich,” “being plucked by fate from the chorus line (or assembly line),” “virtue rewarded” and (my personal favorite) “persisting through terrible tribulations and being uplifted by some extremely unlikely deus ex machina.” Not that these things don’t still happen (occasionally), or that people don’t pine for them, but I’ll bet if you talked to ten college students who want to become wealthy, nine would say they’re planning to do it by starting or getting involved in some sort of lucrative business venture.

This popular mythology about business, it seems to me, is an amalgam of a number of elements. First, there’s the core American belief in the efficacy of hard work and the possibility of raising oneself up by one’s own bootstraps. This
has formed the basis of how we see ourselves since the very beginning of our nation: the idea that in America, ancestry is not destiny, and that people can become what they envision. Pushing westward, building the railroads, inventing, creating, refining: we have always believed in commerce as the great leveler of society.

Second, there is the assumption spawned by the Internet (the late-’90s bust notwithstanding) that if you just find/create the right product/service/idea at the right time and offer it online in the right way, you can achieve crazy-level financial success. Look at the Google guys. For most of us, there’s still enough mystery and magic about how the web actually works to enable us to imagine that any business having to do with new media might instantly result in thousands of rabbits from hundreds of hats.

Finally, we may no longer think that “greed is good” (in the words of Gorden Gekko, the creepy Michael Douglas character from Wall Street)—or, at least, most people don’t say it out loud—but the legacy of the eighties is this: that young, Bright-eyed men and women can aspire to do well in business without feeling like soulless sell-outs.

So, if we as a nation believe that there is both physical and psychic gold to be had by pursuing business, what better way to find out where to dig than by reading books that provide the needed maps? Unlike previous generations, who had to actually get out and do it (make your way to California, apprentice yourself to a bootmaker, sign up for the next clipper ship to China), we can sit in the comfort of our living rooms and look over the shoulders of those who’ve done it before us, trying to extract the lessons we’ll need to do it ourselves…or at least to let us dream—to convince us that we could do it if we really wanted to.

THE CELEBRIFICATION OF BUSINESS LEADERS
If you scan the business book shelves of any Barnes and Noble or Borders, you’ll see a lot more volumes with faces on them than in years past. Business books used to be serious—if boring—tomes in strong colors with impressive typefaces. Now, more often than not, the front cover shows a slick photo of Donald, Martha, Lee, Carly, Jack or whoever. What gives?

It seems to me the American fascination with celebrity has played a large part in boosting business book sales. As a culture, we seem endlessly intrigued with people who have lives of privilege and wealth, and over the past decade or so, we’ve turned some of our attention away from movie stars, athletes and royalty, and trained it on business tycoons. In fact, it seems that no matter what these celebrity business people are saying (or, in some cases, preaching) in their books, the real draw is that face on the cover.

When I was looking for an agent for my first book a few years ago, one of the people I spoke to—a woman who is agent to a few of these very mega-executives—told me that while my book was very solid and compelling, I didn’t have a “big enough platform.” A novice in these matters at the time, I asked her what she meant. “Well, to be quite blunt,” she replied, “you’re not famous enough.”

So, it’s not so much what these folks have accomplished or the clarity of their wisdom that sells their books—although that is, in some cases, very impressive—it’s quite simply that they’re well-known and therefore interesting. People buy books by “famous” business people for basically the same reason other people buy Entertainment Weekly or listen to Larry King—they want to find out more about people whose lives they find intriguing.

DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME
A few months back, when I was just beginning to think about writing this article, I was out to dinner with my 19-year-old son, and I asked him why he thought there were so many more business books being bought these days. “It’s the complexity of the undertaking,” he replied. At my quizzical look, he continued, “Imagine some guy in the Korean war. All he thinks about is getting back home and starting an auto-body shop, or a pizzeria. And when he gets home, he does it: borrows some money from his dad or the bank, rents a space, buys some stuff and starts fixing cars or making pizza. If he works hard and does good work, he hires a couple of people. Gets married, sends his kids to college. The American dream: simple.” I nodded. “Now, though, that guys’ kids want to be portfolio analysts or music producers. It’s much more complicated and shapeless. How do you do it? And they think, ‘I bet there is a bunch of books about this.’ And there is.”

I think he’s absolutely right. And I’d expand it to include the complexity of everything—not just of the undertaking. People who want to start businesses today, who want to do well in their chosen careers, or who want to figure out how to choose a career are faced with orders of complexity that would boggle the mind of that unconfused Korean war vet.

It seems to me this is the most important factor driving the exponential increase in the popularity of business books: the world—and the world of business—is a complicated place, and we want help figuring it out.

We’ve always used books to explore and to learn. Books about history to explore the past and learn the lessons of others’ mistakes; books about travel to explore distant places and learn about other cultures; books of fiction to explore invented worlds and learn about others’ experiences. Now, as we rush headlong into the 21st century, business books allow us to explore all the emerging worlds of commerce, invention and growth, and teach us how to navigate through those worlds.

Erika is the founding partner of Proteus International, a consulting and training firm that focuses on leader readiness. She serves as coach and advisor to the senior executives of such companies as GE, Time Warner Cable, TJX, NBC Universal and Union Square Hospitality Group. You can keep up with Erika on her blog (erikaandersen.com), at Forbes (blogs.forbes.com/erikaandersen/), and on Twitter (@erikaandersen).

→ Read Wednesday’s Thinker in Residence introduction to Erika Andersen and her newest book, Leading So People Will Follow.
→ Read yesterday’s Thinker in Residence discussion with Erika Andersen on Being Strategic.

Comments (6)

March 28, 2013

Thinker in Residence: A Q&A Interview with Erika Andersen on Being Strategic

Filed under: Big Ideas,Strategy,Thinker in Residence,Uncategorized — Tags: Andersen, Being Strategic, Erika Andersen, leadership, strategy — Sally @ 12:03 pm

For me, the most exciting thing about being strategic is that it’s learnable. Most people talk about being strategic as though it’s something you’re born with…or not. And too bad for you if you’re not! But we’ve seen over the years, in teaching people to use these skills and this process, that almost everyone can improve their ability to be strategic – and thereby increase the likelihood of creating the business, the career or the life they most want.

~Erika Andersen

Yesterday we introduced you to the newest work by Erika Andersen, Leading So People Will Follow, and today we’re going to talk with her about some of the themes she explored in her previous book, Being Strategic: Plan for Success, Out-Think Your Competitors, Stay Ahead of Change.

Q: How do the 15 Chapters of Being Strategic build on each other?

EA: When I thought about structuring the book, I wanted first to provide an overview of the Being Strategic approach, in a simple, compelling and engaging way. Then, once the reader had a framework for what I was offering and why, I wanted to share and teach the mental model and skills of being strategic. After that I figured I could build on that understanding to share the basics of how to use this model with a group.

So that’s how I built it: the first chapter provides the context of the complete approach (including setting up the Llewelyn Fawr “frame story”). Part I teaches the model step-by-step, with real world examples and applications. Finally, Part II offers skills, knowledge and insight for bringing the approach to a group, getting them interested in the idea of using it, and then guiding them through the process.

Q: In the introduction, you promise that, in Chapter 7 – the Art of Crafting Strategy, you’ll demystify strategy and provide a practical and simple selection process. How does that process of demystification work?

EA: The demystification process actually begins when I offer a simple, common-sense definition for the phrase being strategic: Consistently making those core directional choices that will best move you toward your hoped-for future. People use the word “strategy” and exhort each other to “be strategic” so often…and rarely explain what they’re talking about or what they think it means. And we use it to mean so many different things – from “looking at the big picture,” to “focusing on the competition,” to really negative things like “being calculated and deceptive,” or “pursuing your own agenda at the expense of others.” So I thought having a common definition would help at the outset.

And within that definition, strategies are those “core directional choices.” So chapter 7 is devoted to providing a simple, learnable approach to selecting those core directional choices. I walk through how to do it, and – again – provide both business and personal examples as a demonstration for the reader. The heart of demystification, in my mind, lies in saying to someone, “Here’s what this is, and here’s how to do it, and here’s how it will help.”

Q: Tell me about the importance of clarity to being strategic and some of the better ways to achieve it.

EA: Clarity is essential to being strategic, and we teach people three skills to help increase their clarity. I think of these as the actual skills for being strategic, the mental tools that help you move through the steps of the model effectively: becoming a fair witness, pulling back the camera, and sorting for impact.

Becoming a fair witness means getting as neutral and objective as possible about the situation. This is especially important when you have a strong emotional investment in a particular outcome – it’s all too easy to lose your objectivity about your current reality, or what’s possible. My favorite example of non-fair-witnessing are the contestants on American Idol who literally cannot sing…and yet have convinced themselves that they’re going to win the competition!

Pulling back the camera means mentally “stepping back from the action” so you can get more context and get clearer about why things are happening and how they’re connected. Quite often, when someone is told they’re “not being strategic” or are “too tactical,” it means others see them as only looking at things from a very narrow, close-in frame: staying focused only on their own actions, needs and point of view. Good strategic thinkers “pull back the camera” to look more broadly at the factors that might be impacting the current situation, or where it might be possible to take the organization, given the landscape surrounding it.

Sorting for impact means thinking about how much a particular fact, circumstance or event is going to affect your challenge. So, as you stay in fair witness mode and pull back the camera, you “screen” the data that comes into your viewfinder against your challenge, asking, “How important is this to the problem I’m trying to solve?” Sometimes the answer isn’t entirely clear – but far more often than not, it is…and doing this “sorting” process helps you stay focused on the things that are most essential to your success in the challenge you’re addressing.

Then you put it all together, using these three skills as you move through the model. It may sound complex, but once you get the hang of it, it starts to feel pretty natural.

Q: Tell me about your 5-step method for being strategic (define the challenge, clarify what is, etc.) and how best to apply it to modern business.

EA: Here are the steps of the process, and how to apply them:

Decide what you’re solving for: Define the Challenge. All too often, business people try to solve problems without first getting clear on them. That can result in “dueling solutions” – a team arguing about how to solve a problem without having come to agreement about what that underlying problem is. Once you have a clear and agreed-upon sense of the core challenge you’re trying to address – from “How can we provide a uniquely valuable customer experience that drives our business’ success?” to “How can we build a manufacturing team that delivers on our business model?” – you’re ready begin solving for it.

Know where you’re starting from: Clarify What Is. Having an accurate and balanced picture of your current reality, relative to the challenge you’ve defined, is a necessary starting point. It’s all too easy to avoid looking at or to under-estimate the less pleasant aspects of your situation: is the slump in July sales just an anomaly, for instance, or part of a larger trend? Being a “fair witness” of your own business is an essential and under-utilized skill.

Get clear about your hoped-for future: Envision What’s the Hope. Especially during difficult times, it’s easy to get into survival mode. But having – and consistently articulating – a clear sense of your hoped-for future for the business gives your employees a positive frame for action and offers an antidote to fear. For example, if people know that you intend to double your number of retail outlets over the next five years, that can have a significant impact on both morale and productivity. In this part of the process, you create for yourself and others a clear, three-dimensional statement of what success would look like relative to your challenge.

See the obstacles: Face What’s In the Way. Once you’ve decided and articulated the future you want to create, it’s essential to be very accurate about the obstacles you’ll have to overcome to make it happen. Business people – and human beings in general – tend to either over- or under-estimate the importance and impact of obstacles. Here again, it’s critical to become a fair witness: to look at the possible obstacles to your vision in a dispassionate and objective way. That makes it much more likely you’ll be able to assess them well, and take appropriate action to overcome them.

Make core directional choices, then get specific: Determine What’s the Path. Strategies are the ‘intentional pathways’ you craft to lead to your hoped-for future. For example, “Concentrate on new product growth,” or “Build an international sales force.” Strategies are core-level decisions about how to best focus your time and energy. Business people often move straight from vision to tactics, without establishing clear strategies, which can result in uncoordinated effort that doesn’t make best use of important resources.

Once you have a handful of clear, high-leverage strategies, you can use them as a filter to decide specifically what to do; the tactics. For instance, what specific actions will you take to build an international sales force? Is the best use of your resources to invest in the existing sales people, by providing more training or better tools, or do you need to add new people in geographic areas of potential growth? By using your strategies as a screen for action, you can make high-leverage choices about what to do and what not to do…one of the most difficult and most important aspects of good business, especially in lean times.

Being – and staying – strategic in this way gives you a way to navigate through these changing times while positioning yourself and your company for future success. It’s a powerful capability; it offers a way to go from simply saying “we need to be more strategic,” to actually doing it, and reaping the rewards that follow.

Q: What is the importance of asking, “What isn’t working?”

EA: As I noted above, it’s nearly impossible to solve a problem without knowing what it is – especially if you’re trying to solve it with a group! By asking, “What isn’t working,” you can start to hone in on the actual problem or challenge.

Q: Would you classify your approach as an advanced form of problem solving? Why?

EA: Hmmm. Interesting question. Maybe – I guess it depends on how you define problem solving! If you define problem-solving broadly as a process of moving from the given state to a goal state, then yes.

I don’t generally think of it as problem solving, though, because using this approach often involves a strong aspirational component. Most problem solving is focused on resolving a current issue to achieve an pre-defined goal. (E.g, let’s increase the speed of this assembly line so it can produce 200 action figures an hour, vs. 150). When you’re being strategic in the sense we’re talking about here, you’re generally thinking about creating a future that doesn’t yet exist, and that you probably haven’t defined yet. It’s a process for envisioning and then achieving a possible goal state, rather than figuring out how to resolve a problem that’s preventing you from reaching an already defined goal. In other words, this approach includes visioning, which may not be a component of most problem solving situations.

However, having said that, I have found that this approach and set of mental skills is almost infinitely scalable up or down – you can use it to grow your business OR get that assembly line ramped up.

Q: How do you recommend one develop and choose strategies – or core directional choices – that will best move an organization forward?

EA: At the risk of being redundant, we’ve found the best way to create powerful strategies is to first have the context provided by going through this process: knowing what your challenge is, where you’re starting from relative to that challenge, what success would look like, and what’s in the way. And my enthusiasm for and commitment to that order of thinking is purely practical: strategies are the “pathways” that lead you from where you are to where you want to go (the future where your challenge is addressed), while overcoming or avoiding the obstacles. So you have the best chance of building good and useful pathways if you’ve gotten clear on those elements before creating your pathways.

There’s another support we offer for creating good strategies: it’s called “sorting for FIT.” FIT is an acronym that stands for Feasible, Impactful, and Timely. As you’re creating your strategies, you need to make sure they’re feasible – that is, that you have the skills, resources and bandwidth to do them; and that they’re impactful – that they’ll give you a “big bang for the buck,” a good ROE in moving toward your vision. And you need to make sure they’re timely, which covers two things, “order” – are these the directions you need to move first? And “opportunity” – do these strategies take good advantage of circumstances that exist now (and may not exist later)?

Q: Tell me more about the distinction between strategy and tactics.

EA: Strategies are, as I noted above, core-level statements of intention. They’re a way of saying “This is a direction we want to move.” Strategies aren’t specific things you can run right out and do. Tactics ARE things you can run right out and do; they’re the specific actions you’ll take to implement your strategies For example, “Build a skilled, motivated workforce,” is a strategy. “Work with an outside consultant to review and redesign our compensation plan to be more in line with the rest of our industry” is a tactic for implementing that strategy.

Q: You spend a fair amount of time in Being Strategic talking about revisiting and revising strategy. Why is that important?

EA: I called the book Being Strategic at least partly because I wanted to convey that this approach is most useful and powerful when it becomes a habit of mind and action; that it’s not a one-time deal. If you create a clear vision and strategy “map” based on this approach, and don’t come back to it…then over time it will no longer reflect reality. It’s important to keep it real, live and true to your situation – then it’s a powerful tool for creating the business, the career, the life you most want.

Q: How can being strategic benefit one’s personal life?

EA: Over the years, I’ve found this process almost universally applicable. In Being Strategic, I use the example of envisioning and creating my dream house overlooking the Hudson – a true story with a hugely beneficial outcome!

I also used this process to find my wonderful husband Patrick. After my first marriage broke up, I decided I wanted to draw upon everything I’d learned to create the relationship I really wanted. I defined my challenge: “How can I create a core relationship of mutual love, friendship, passion, and support that will grow and flourish throughout both our lives?” Then I got clear about my current state, my hoped-for future, and the obstacles to achieving that future, both inside me and around me. With that understanding in place I created strategies and tactics for achieving my vision, the relationship I truly desired. And I met Patrick about 3 months later.

→ → Check in with us tomorrow for more insight “On Business and Books” from Erika Andersen.
→ → Read yesterday’s Thinker in Residence introduction to Erika Andersen and her newest book, Leading So People Will Follow.

Comments (3)

March 27, 2013

Thinker in Residence: Erika Andersen, author of Leading So People Will Follow

Filed under: Uncategorized — Sally @ 12:13 pm

The next featured author in our Thinker in Residence series is Erika Andersen, author of Leading So People Will Follow (Jossey-Bass, 2012); Being Strategic: Plan for Success, Out-Think Your Competitors, Stay Ahead of Change (St. Martin’s, 2010); Growing Great Employees: Turning Ordinary People Into Extraordinary Performers (Portfolio, 2007), and the author and host of Being Strategic with Erika Andersen on Public Television.

In an informal Q&A with Erika from last year, she explained the curiosity that drives her work:

“It would be fair to say that everything I’ve created or co-created in my business, and certainly all three of my books, is nothing more or less than extended efforts to answer these questions: “How does this work?” and “How can we make it work better?” I get tremendous satisfaction from being able to crack the code on some aspect of human behavior or organizational function, and then give people practical guidance and support for improvement.”

Let’s look a little more closely at how she addresses those questions while exploring leadership in her newest book, Leading So People Will Follow.

Our Review:

Call it what you will: “Buy-in,” “Loyalty,” or “Enthusiasm.” Use whatever metaphor for the phenomenon you like—maybe “Everyone’s onboard” and “rowing the oars together”—but the simple reality is that every organization needs leaders, and leaders need followers. It’s how business gets done.

There is a lot of mythology surrounding effective leaders, but one need not be a “natural born leader” to inspire people. In her book, Leading So People Will Follow, leadership coach and acclaimed business author Erika Andersen lays out “six leadership characteristics that inspire followers to fully support their leaders,” making the qualities that define great leaders accessible to all.

As in her previous two books, Growing Great Employees and Being Strategic, Andersen employs metaphor to illustrate her ideas. In this book, she spins readers a “folktale” of a soon-to-be prince and the princess he rescues. Using this “hero’s journey” as a device to illustrate the behaviors of “the acknowledged leader” (being Far-sighted, Passionate, Courageous, Wise, Generous, and Trustworthy), she sets readers out on a journey of their own to “help you find your own happily ever after as a truly accepted, fully ‘followable’ leader.” While each chapter includes insight from Andersen’s own experience as a leadership consultant, as well as examples of real-life successful leaders, she understands that myths as metaphor have been utilized to instruct behavior since the dawn of time, and that we as contemporary business people are not immune to the effectiveness of a good story.

For example, Andersen begins Chapter 5, “Courage,” by furthering the “boy-saves-princess” tale she has been unraveling episodically since her Introduction. Here we find the “King-in-training” being pitched a rather grand and grave idea. Agree to be shrunken by fairy dust to become “smaller than an almond” in order to be shot out of a blow-dart gun and surmount the treacherous mountains that stand between him and the princess. Anderson parallels this episode with the courageous decision-making of John McDermott, the head of Global Sales and Marketing for Rockwell Automation, emphasizing that courage isn’t always physical, and can often mean “doing things that we simply don’t want to do” to benefit of a larger cause. The lesson here is that, when people watch their leaders act courageously—in their defense, for their benefit—they open up, begin to trust their leaders, and emulate that courageousness.

I have the good fortune of knowing Erika Andersen, and can tell that all of the qualities you find in the book are also in the woman. And I can confidently tell you that her new book, Leading So People Will Follow, is as engaging—-and yes, as “followable”—-as she herself is. So grab a copy, grab an oar, and get onboard!

Explore Further:

Further explore Erika Andersen’s leadership philosophy with these articles written in her own words:

In Leading–Now and Always (via erikaandersen.com), Andersen posits that “good leaders are going to become increasingly important as everything in business gets flatter, faster, more disrupted” and presents the key qualities–Far-sighted, Passionate, Courageous, Wise, Generous, and Trustworthy–that leaders need to increase their effectiveness.

In Are Leaders Born or Made? (via Forbes.com), Andersen asserts that any leader, born or made, who want to become a great leader must first become self-aware. To do this takes the development and practice of three key abilities: Become a Fair Witness; Invite Feedback; Listen.

Check in with us tomorrow as we continue our Thinker in Residence series on Erika Andersen with a Q&A interview that focuses on strategy.

Comments (2)

Global Dexterity

Filed under: Blog,Book Reviews,Global Business — Michael @ 11:23 am

While reading Andy Molinsky’s new book Global Dexterity, I was reminded of an experience I had shortly after starting my first job as a working professional. I had been on the job for about a month. A colleague in my department was turning 30, so we were celebrating in a vacant office with some grocery store cake. Standing around the table in this cramped and florescently-lit office, the conversation turned to the topic of a staff member who had been let go before I was hired. There were jokes made, and the general sentiment toward the woman in question was negative. Despite the fact that I didn’t know her and hadn’t worked with her, I also made a comment (not a joke, simply a comment) I thought was fine and in keeping with the overall tone of the conversation. I was immediately and publicly rebuked by an older colleague, who told me I didn’t know the woman and that I was being disrespectful. At the time I was embarrassed, but I feel now like I could have gained from what Molinsky lays out in this very useful book.

Global Dexterity sells itself as a guide for adapting your behavior across cultures. My initial thought when reading the introduction was to the point that the book would be narrowly focused on the more obviously global differences: US-born professionals working in India or Japan. And Molinsky does touch on that, since it’s an important part of what we think about when we think about working across cultures. But there is also this broader, more universal application to the concept of global dexterity. The book defines global dexterity this way:

The capacity to adapt your behavior, when necessary, in a foreign cultural environment to accommodate new and different expectations that vary from those of your native cultural setting. [...] Global dexterity is a critical skill for anyone from any culture attempting to function successfully in today’s global environment.

And again, the obvious application is to the most commonly-used definition of ‘foreign’: other countries. But there are other kinds of foreignness that we perhaps forget about when we think of the workplaces inside of a single country. My experience as a ‘disrespectful’ new hire was a result of my failure to adapt to the environment I was working in. Anyone new to the working world will find him or herself in the same position; every workplace has its own culture and decoding that culture is essential to your professional and social success there. The rise of the ‘solopreneur’ and the freelance marketplace also speaks to the importance of global dexterity among professionals. As a freelancer or consultant based in Manhattan, you might find yourself in another world when you’re working on site in Nebraska. The possibilities for cultural foreignness can’t be accounted for before the fact, so it’s that much more important to be adaptable, or dexterous.

Global Dexterity presents a six dimensional approach for doing what Molinsky calls ‘diagnosing the cultural code’, that is, figuring out how to behave in this new culture. The ample research done for this book is made evident by the dozens of real case studies presented to illustrate the ways in which immersion into a new culture can be a challenge. Viewing the workplace through the lens of Molinsky’s six-dimensional approach can ease that challenge. This book is a quick and easy-to-understand resource for anyone who might find himself in a remotely foreign culture. It might simply save you some unneeded embarrassment, or it might go as far as saving your job.

Comments Off

« Newer Posts — Older Posts »