Category: Vision

When Is It The Leader's Job To Build Creative Confidence?

June 17, 2012 by Elisa SpainNo Comments

Do you divide your team into “creatives” and ” practical” people? If so, are you missing out on the creative ideas of the other half?

If you ask David Kelley, founder of IDEO, and winner of countless innovation awards including Fast Company’s Top 25 Most Innovative companies, he will say yes.

David maintains that human beings are naturally creative and it is fear of judgement that stifles creativity in most of us. He asks, what might happen if we were to overcome that fear of judgement and unleash our creativity? Perhaps the secret lies in what psychologist Albert Bandura calls guided mastery – a process whereby we identify a fear or phobia and by forcing ourselves to overcome that fear, we release our creative abilities.

How might you as a leader create an environment that enables your employees to build their creative confidence? Perhaps a simple starting place is with more legitimate brainstorming – following the brainstorming rules – no idea is a bad idea!

If you want to take this further, are you willing to expose your team to guided mastery? Sound too touchy-feely for you?

Before jumping to judgement, take a look at this 12 minute TED Video where David tells stories from his legendary design career and his own life, and offers ways to build the confidence to create.

Another View On Leadership, Is Boring Better??

June 10, 2012 by Elisa SpainNo Comments

When discussing the characteristics of great leaders – words like inspirational, charismatic, brilliant, innovative often come up.

Boring, on the other hand, is not typically a descriptor of great leaders. Which is why when I saw this article by Joel Stein, entitled Boringness: The Secret to Great Leadership, I paused…

While Joel writes a humor column for TIME Magazine, and therefore one might take his comments to be tongue-in-cheek, he makes some points worth considering.

Here’s a summary of Joel’s observations while preparing for his latest book.

The best leaders tended to be quiet listeners who let others make the decisions. They weren’t particularly charismatic, or funny. They weren’t the toughest guys. They weren’t driven by a need to be liked or single-mindedly focused with intensity. In short, a bit boring.

On the other hand, the best leaders in Stein’s research were humble, calm, reflective and self-confident. They were passionate about only one thing, the mission of the team. The boring leaders in Stein’s research spent their time helping their teams achieve the mission and giving them feedback on their progress.

Here’s a quote from the article that sums this up well:

“Everyone at Captain Buzz Smith’s firehouse knows they are doing things exactly right. And that seems to make them both proud and assured. They would do anything for Capt. Smith. Not because they love him — I’m not entirely sure that outside of the firehouse he could inspire them even to switch TV channels — but because his deep belief in his mission makes them also believe in that mission.”

What do you think, is it possible to be a boring leader and a great leader?

Does A Business Have To Grow?

June 3, 2012 by Elisa SpainNo Comments

This is a topic often discussed amongst my Vistage members. Some want to grow, others like the idea of maintaining a controllable size. There is no one-size-fits-all answer. What I do know is that businesses are organic, and therefore static is not sustainable. We’ve all seen businesses disappear over time when the owner was not engaged, unaware of changes in the industry, lost a key employee, a new competitor entered the market with a game changing idea, etc.

If you accept that static is not sustainable, what to do?

If you find that you like the entrepreneur culture, with everyone playing a part in the business, be intentional about it. While you may not want fast growth or a large company, a business has no choice but to continue to evolve and grow, even if it is at a steady pace. If you are in this place, here are my questions for you:

Do you have a diversified client base?
If not, what steps are you taking to diversify and reduce this risk?
Where is your business and your product(s) in the business life cycle? If you are in a mature industry, with mature products, what is your “digital camera” and what are you doing about it? see March 11, 2012 blog, Innovation vs Discipline: Kodak vs Fuji

If, on the other hand, you have the opportunity to scale and want to, be intentional about that as well. The challenge for many entrepreneurs who want to grow is making that transformation from an “entrepreneur culture” to a professionally managed culture. If you are an owner with a growth plan, here are your questions:

Do you want to be the CEO of a professionally managed company? Does the thought give you energy and play to your genius?
If you would rather leave the management to someone else, is there someone on your team that could be your COO?
Are you open to accepting that your business is going to change and some of the people will have to change as well?
Are you willing to invest the time and the money to get there?

Whichever path you choose, make it an intentional one.

Why "Big Picture Only" Leaders Fail

May 13, 2012 by Elisa SpainNo Comments

As discussed in last week’s blog, there is a difference between management and leadership. Leadership is “doing the right things” and focusing on the big picture certainly falls into this category. That said, when leaders focus solely on vision and strategy and not on execution, put simply, nothing gets done.

Successful leaders know that they must set a vision so there is a destination that their team can rally around.

Once the vision is defined, setting a business strategy to achieve the vision provides guidance for evaluating opportunities. With a strategy in place, we can ask the questions:

Is this opportunity consistent with our strategy?
If not, AND there is a reason to do it anyway, what do we need to adjust in our strategy?

The final step is goals and action plans and a monitoring process to ensure results. It is this key step that is often missed and leads to failure. This is why Vistage members share their vision, strategy and goals and are accountable to each other for all three.

Robert Sutton, best selling author of Good Boss, Bad Boss, says it well:

“While managers are people who do things right and leaders are people who do the right thing, I argued this distinction was accurate but dangerous because it distorts how too many bosses–at all levels–view and do their work. It encourages bosses to see generating big and vague ideas as the important part of their jobs–and to treat implementation, or pesky details of any kind, as mere “management work” best done by “the little people.” Even if left unsaid, this distinction reflects how too many bosses think and act. They use it to avoid learning about people they lead, technologies their companies use, customers they serve, and numerous other crucial little things.”

For more from Robert Sutton, click here.

Leadership Vs. Management – Does It Matter?

May 6, 2012 by Elisa Spain5 Comments

Recently, one of my Vistage members asked the group this question: “What is the difference between leadership and management?”

He heard a lot of responses and the one that said it best was this one…

“Leadership is doing the right things, management is doing things right.” from management guru Warren Bennis

What does it mean to do things right? Here are my top 5:

Leadership is setting the direction
Leadership is inspiring when there are tailwinds and when there are headwinds
Leadership is being intentional about your culture
Leadership is accountability
Leadership is making tough choices

And here are my questions for you:

What else would you add to this list?
If you and your leadership team did your job well as leaders and managed the agreements you have with your team, how might the role of management evolve?

Innovation Vs. Discipline Part 2: Kodak Vs. Fujifilm

March 11, 2012 by Elisa Spain1 Comment

Lots of press swirling around the impending bankruptcy of Kodak. While Kodak suffers, its long-time rival Fujifilm is doing rather well. Why? Is it innovation or is it discipline? (See March 4, 2011 Blog, post Which is the Winning Strategy? Innovation or Discipline for Part I)

At one time, Kodak was one of the most innovative and disciplined companies in the world, with a rigorous approach to manufacturing. And, discipline is more than discipline in production; discipline also is a disciplined approach to the market – recognizing AND acting on changes in market dynamics.

Kodak and Fuji both saw digital coming. Fuji acted, Kodak was complacent. (Success breeds arrogance?)

Fuji continued their film business while diversifying into other business lines. They were consistent and disciplined in their approach to new markets. They identified market opportunities, invested in exploring the new markets and when satisfied the opportunity was there, had the vision and leadership to move forward with the investment and organizational changes required to reconstruct their business model.

Kodak on the other hand, dabbled in opportunities while never making the investment and organizational changes required to adapt to the new world. They became a victim instead.

For me, as a leadership coach, this story of Kodak and Fuji, raises the following questions for CEO’s and leaders of successful businesses:

What is the equivalent of the digital camera for us?
Are we noticing when we are becoming complacent?
Are we in tune with market changes and prepared to act in a disciplined manner?
Do we have the cash or sources of capital to make the investment in diversification?
Are we willing to make the uncomfortable organizational changes necessary to diversify into new markets?

The Economist details the story of both companies in this article, “The last Kodak moment?”

The Ever Elusive Search For Work-Life-Balance

February 5, 2012 by Elisa SpainNo Comments

For many of us, the holy grail of success is achieving “Work-Life- Balance”. It is a topic of frequent discussion at Vistage meetings and in my leadership coaching sessions. When I start with a new client, this topic is often on the list for discussion. And yet, despite all the discussions, books and articles, many of us feel this “balance” eludes us. Perhaps, it is because we see it as an either/or – choosing between work and life so as to achieve balance?

What if instead we saw it, as James Michener did, becoming masters in the art of living…

“Masters in the art of living make little distinction

between their work and their play, their

labor and their leisure, their mind and their

body, their information and their

recreation, their love and their religion.

They hardly know which is which.

They simply pursue their vision of excellence at

whatever they do, leaving others to

decide whether they are working or playing.

To them they are always doing both.”

Laws Of Success: The Answers May Surprise You

January 22, 2012 by Elisa SpainNo Comments

I just finished reading Jim Collins’ new book, Great by Choice and as he says, the results may surprise you; they did me.

Here’s the good news, if you, as CEO, have ambition, creativity, vision, insight, a good strategy, are innovative, possess a willingness to take risk; in short, all the typical characteristics we attribute to leaders, you can become a standout success.

However, and it’s a big however, one that certainly caused me as a leadership coach to pause. All the companies Jim Collins and his partner Morten Hansen researched, were led by CEO’s with these characteristics – the ones that thrived AND the ones that did not.

Here’s what he did find that was different about these leaders. The companies that thrive possess three common characteristics:

fanatic discipline
empirical creativity
productive paranoia

As I reflect on the great leaders I have known in my career as a leadership coach, my surprise at the results fades. The great leaders I know all share these characteristics.

Jim drives this point home in chapter 2 as he tells the story of Roald Amundsen’s and Robert Falcon Scott’s quest for the South Pole. When you understand what Amundsen did to prepare and Scott did not do, it becomes crystal clear why Amundsen was successful and Scott was not. Just as it will become clear why each of the high-performers Collins and Hansen study achieved their results.

I encourage you to read the book, and ask yourself the following questions:

Do I possess these high-performer characteristics?
What am I doing today to focus on them each day?
How might I integrate my genius and my talents to maximize my results?

Want Greater Success? Nurture Your Butterflies

December 25, 2011 by Elisa Spain3 Comments

Good leaders always strive to have butterflies in their stomach, says Kathleen L. Flanagan, president and chief executive of Abt Associates, a $450mm consultancy firm.

When we are out of our comfort zone, we have the greatest opportunity for success. It’s when we become complacent and run on auto-pilot that we as leaders are most at risk of failure.

In this interview in The New York Times, Kathleen describes her first big promotion, the first time she managed people, how she had butterflies in her stomach the entire first year, and how she ultimately learned to trust her gut.

Her advice is the same advice she heard from her first boss and mentor, the one who gave her that first job. “There is no blueprint, you have to make a plan and be goal oriented. Always have butterflies and always plan for success.”

To the advice she received from her former boss, Kathleen adds her own wisdom: Be flexible. Listen to people. Give them the opportunity to give feedback, tell you what worries them, what they are thinking about, what part of the strategy they think is risky.

As a leadership coach, I ask myself and you the following questions as we plan for 2012:

What is your vision for success?

What specific goals have you set to move toward your vision?

Are we taking the risks that create butterflies, and if not, why not?