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Leadership By Persuasion

As a leader, your success depends upon your ability to get things done: up, down and across all lines. Today’s organizations are politically complex and fluid, which blurs lines of formal authority. 

To survive and succeed, you must learn to persuade people: to convince them to take action on your behalf and under your direction, often without formal authority. Even when you do have formal authority, you may be hesitant to use it. 

Persuasion is widely perceived as a skill reserved for sales and negotiation. Now, it’s an essential proficiency for all leaders.

Defining Our Terms

“Effective persuasion becomes a negotiating and learning process through which a persuader leads colleagues to a problem’s shared solution.”

—Jay A. Conger, PhD 

Professor of organizational behavior, London Business School

Author, Winning ’Em Over: A New Model for Management in the Age of Persuasion 

 

Persuasion involves leading people to take a position they don’t currently hold. You must not only make a rational argument, but also position your information, ideas, approaches and/or solutions in ways that appeal to basic human emotions. Dr. Conger describes the traditional view of persuasion: “First, you strongly state your position. Second, you outline the supporting arguments, followed by a highly assertive, data-based exposition. Finally, you enter the deal-making stage and work toward a close.”

Discovery, Preparation, Dialogue

Any attempt to persuade may provoke colleagues to oppose and polarize. If, according to Dr. Conger, persuasion is a learning and negotiating process, then it must include three phases: discovery, preparation and dialogue. 

Before you even begin to speak, you must consider your position from every angle. Getting ready to present your ideas may take weeks or months of planning, as you learn about your audience and prepare your arguments. 

Dialogue occurs both before and during the persuasion process. You must invite people to discuss solutions, debate the merits of your position, offer honest feedback and suggest alternatives.

To effectively persuade, you must test and revise ideas to reflect your colleagues’ concerns and needs. Success depends on being open-minded and willing to incorporate compromises. 

Four Steps to Successful Persuasion

Leading through persuasion requires you to follow four essential steps:

1. Establish credibility.

2. Understand your audience, framing your goals in a way that identifies common ground.

3. Reinforce your positions with vivid language and compelling evidence.

4. Connect emotionally with your audience.

To avoid failure, your strategy for persuasion must be as compelling as your arguments. 

The Importance of Credibility

Credibility develops from two sources: expertise and relationships. Listen carefully to your audience’s suggestions, and establish an environment in which they know their opinions are valued. Prepare by collecting data and information that both support and contradict your arguments—a step that sheds light on your position’s strengths and weaknesses. Place others’ best interests first so you can validate that you truly care about the team’s well-being.

Frame for Common Ground

You must be adept at describing your positions in ways that illuminate their advantages. The primary goal is to identify tangible benefits to which your targeted audience can relate. This requires multiple conversations, meetings and dialogue to collect essential information by asking thoughtful questions. This process will often prompt you to alter your initial argument or include compromises.

Identify key decision makers, stakeholders and the organization’s network of influence. Who is supportive, unyielding or neutral? Pinpoint their interests and how they view alternatives. 

Provide Evidence

Persuasion requires you to present evidence: strong data in multiple forms (stories, graphs, images, metaphors and examples). Make your position come alive by using vivid language that complements graphics. In most cases, a rock-solid argument: 

o Is logical and consistent with facts and experience

o Favorably addresses your audience’s interests

o Eliminates or neutralizes competing alternatives

o Recognizes and deals with office politics

o Receives endorsements from objective, authoritative third parties

Connect Emotionally

Your connection to your audience must demonstrate both intellectual and emotional commitment to your position. Successful persuaders cultivate an accurate sense of their audience’s emotional state, and they adjust their arguments’ tone accordingly. Whatever your position, you must match your emotional fervor to your audience’s ability to receive your message.

Virtual Teams

It’s even harder to persuade when your relationships are electronically based. Without face-to-face meetings, you cannot gather critical nonverbal cues that help you connect with others. If you usually communicate by email, arrange frequent phone conferences to interact on a more personal level. While actual meetings require travel expenses, they may be well worth the cost.

Four Ways to Fail at Persuasion

Most leaders attempt to persuade through logic, persistence and personal enthusiasm. In reality, this model is a setup for failure. You blunder when you:

1. Make your case with a hard sell. Assailing colleagues with preconceived ideas from the get-go gives potential opponents a clear target for battle.

2. Resist compromise. To buy into your proposal, people want to see if you’re flexible enough to respond to their concerns. Compromises often lead to more sustainable solutions.

3. Think the secret of persuasion lies in presenting great arguments. Your credibility—as well as your ability to create a mutually beneficial framework, connect on the right emotional level and communicate through vivid language that makes arguments come alive—are equally important.

4. Assume persuasion is a one-shot effort. Persuasion is a process, not an event. It’s rarely possible to arrive at a shared solution on the first try. 

Resources

Conger, J.A. (1998) Winning ’Em Over: A New Model for Management in the Age of Persuasion. Simon & Schuster. New York NY.

Getting People On Board. (2005) The Results-Driven Manager Series. Harvard Business School Press. Boston MA.

Power, Influence, and Persuasion: Sell Your Ideas and Make Things Happen. (2005) Harvard Business Essentials. Harvard Business School Press. Boston MA.

CoachAnovick.com

Developing Potential, Producing Results

Paul Anovick

201-445-2822

Leadership By Persuasion

As a leader, your success depends upon your ability to get things done: up, down and across all lines. Today’s organizations are politically complex and fluid, which blurs lines of formal authority. 

To survive and succeed, you must learn to persuade people: to convince them to take action on your behalf and under your direction, often without formal authority. Even when you do have formal authority, you may be hesitant to use it. 

Persuasion is widely perceived as a skill reserved for sales and negotiation. Now, it’s an essential proficiency for all leaders.

Defining Our Terms

“Effective persuasion becomes a negotiating and learning process through which a persuader leads colleagues to a problem’s shared solution.”

—Jay A. Conger, PhD 

Professor of organizational behavior, London Business School

Author, Winning ’Em Over: A New Model for Management in the Age of Persuasion 

 

Persuasion involves leading people to take a position they don’t currently hold. You must not only make a rational argument, but also position your information, ideas, approaches and/or solutions in ways that appeal to basic human emotions. Dr. Conger describes the traditional view of persuasion: “First, you strongly state your position. Second, you outline the supporting arguments, followed by a highly assertive, data-based exposition. Finally, you enter the deal-making stage and work toward a close.”

Discovery, Preparation, Dialogue

Any attempt to persuade may provoke colleagues to oppose and polarize. If, according to Dr. Conger, persuasion is a learning and negotiating process, then it must include three phases: discovery, preparation and dialogue. 

Before you even begin to speak, you must consider your position from every angle. Getting ready to present your ideas may take weeks or months of planning, as you learn about your audience and prepare your arguments. 

Dialogue occurs both before and during the persuasion process. You must invite people to discuss solutions, debate the merits of your position, offer honest feedback and suggest alternatives.

To effectively persuade, you must test and revise ideas to reflect your colleagues’ concerns and needs. Success depends on being open-minded and willing to incorporate compromises. 

Four Steps to Successful Persuasion

Leading through persuasion requires you to follow four essential steps:

1. Establish credibility.

2. Understand your audience, framing your goals in a way that identifies common ground.

3. Reinforce your positions with vivid language and compelling evidence.

4. Connect emotionally with your audience.

To avoid failure, your strategy for persuasion must be as compelling as your arguments. 

The Importance of Credibility

Credibility develops from two sources: expertise and relationships. Listen carefully to your audience’s suggestions, and establish an environment in which they know their opinions are valued. Prepare by collecting data and information that both support and contradict your arguments—a step that sheds light on your position’s strengths and weaknesses. Place others’ best interests first so you can validate that you truly care about the team’s well-being.

Frame for Common Ground

You must be adept at describing your positions in ways that illuminate their advantages. The primary goal is to identify tangible benefits to which your targeted audience can relate. This requires multiple conversations, meetings and dialogue to collect essential information by asking thoughtful questions. This process will often prompt you to alter your initial argument or include compromises.

Identify key decision makers, stakeholders and the organization’s network of influence. Who is supportive, unyielding or neutral? Pinpoint their interests and how they view alternatives. 

Provide Evidence

Persuasion requires you to present evidence: strong data in multiple forms (stories, graphs, images, metaphors and examples). Make your position come alive by using vivid language that complements graphics. In most cases, a rock-solid argument: 

o Is logical and consistent with facts and experience

o Favorably addresses your audience’s interests

o Eliminates or neutralizes competing alternatives

o Recognizes and deals with office politics

o Receives endorsements from objective, authoritative third parties

Connect Emotionally

Your connection to your audience must demonstrate both intellectual and emotional commitment to your position. Successful persuaders cultivate an accurate sense of their audience’s emotional state, and they adjust their arguments’ tone accordingly. Whatever your position, you must match your emotional fervor to your audience’s ability to receive your message.

Virtual Teams

It’s even harder to persuade when your relationships are electronically based. Without face-to-face meetings, you cannot gather critical nonverbal cues that help you connect with others. If you usually communicate by email, arrange frequent phone conferences to interact on a more personal level. While actual meetings require travel expenses, they may be well worth the cost.

Four Ways to Fail at Persuasion

Most leaders attempt to persuade through logic, persistence and personal enthusiasm. In reality, this model is a setup for failure. You blunder when you:

1. Make your case with a hard sell. Assailing colleagues with preconceived ideas from the get-go gives potential opponents a clear target for battle.

2. Resist compromise. To buy into your proposal, people want to see if you’re flexible enough to respond to their concerns. Compromises often lead to more sustainable solutions.

3. Think the secret of persuasion lies in presenting great arguments. Your credibility—as well as your ability to create a mutually beneficial framework, connect on the right emotional level and communicate through vivid language that makes arguments come alive—are equally important.

4. Assume persuasion is a one-shot effort. Persuasion is a process, not an event. It’s rarely possible to arrive at a shared solution on the first try. 

Resources

Conger, J.A. (1998) Winning ’Em Over: A New Model for Management in the Age of Persuasion. Simon & Schuster. New York NY.

Getting People On Board. (2005) The Results-Driven Manager Series. Harvard Business School Press. Boston MA.

Power, Influence, and Persuasion: Sell Your Ideas and Make Things Happen. (2005) Harvard Business Essentials. Harvard Business School Press. Boston MA.

CoachAnovick.com

Developing Potential, Producing Results

Paul Anovick

201-445-2822

To survive and succeed, you must learn to persuade people: to convince them to take action on your behalf and under your direction, often without formal authority. Even when you do have formal authority, you may be hesitant to use it. 

Persuasion is widely perceived as a skill reserved for sales and negotiation. Now, it’s an essential proficiency for all leaders.

Defining Our Terms

“Effective persuasion becomes a negotiating and learning process through which a persuader leads colleagues to a problem’s shared solution.”

—Jay A. Conger, PhD 

Professor of organizational behavior, London Business School

Author, Winning ’Em Over: A New Model for Management in the Age of Persuasion 

 

Persuasion involves leading people to take a position they don’t currently hold. You must not only make a rational argument, but also position your information, ideas, approaches and/or solutions in ways that appeal to basic human emotions. Dr. Conger describes the traditional view of persuasion: “First, you strongly state your position. Second, you outline the supporting arguments, followed by a highly assertive, data-based exposition. Finally, you enter the deal-making stage and work toward a close.”

Discovery, Preparation, Dialogue

Any attempt to persuade may provoke colleagues to oppose and polarize. If, according to Dr. Conger, persuasion is a learning and negotiating process, then it must include three phases: discovery, preparation and dialogue. 

Before you even begin to speak, you must consider your position from every angle. Getting ready to present your ideas may take weeks or months of planning, as you learn about your audience and prepare your arguments. 

Dialogue occurs both before and during the persuasion process. You must invite people to discuss solutions, debate the merits of your position, offer honest feedback and suggest alternatives.

To effectively persuade, you must test and revise ideas to reflect your colleagues’ concerns and needs. Success depends on being open-minded and willing to incorporate compromises. 

Four Steps to Successful Persuasion

Leading through persuasion requires you to follow four essential steps:

1. Establish credibility.

2. Understand your audience, framing your goals in a way that identifies common ground.

3. Reinforce your positions with vivid language and compelling evidence.

4. Connect emotionally with your audience.

To avoid failure, your strategy for persuasion must be as compelling as your arguments. 

The Importance of Credibility

Credibility develops from two sources: expertise and relationships. Listen carefully to your audience’s suggestions, and establish an environment in which they know their opinions are valued. Prepare by collecting data and information that both support and contradict your arguments—a step that sheds light on your position’s strengths and weaknesses. Place others’ best interests first so you can validate that you truly care about the team’s well-being.

Frame for Common Ground

You must be adept at describing your positions in ways that illuminate their advantages. The primary goal is to identify tangible benefits to which your targeted audience can relate. This requires multiple conversations, meetings and dialogue to collect essential information by asking thoughtful questions. This process will often prompt you to alter your initial argument or include compromises.

Identify key decision makers, stakeholders and the organization’s network of influence. Who is supportive, unyielding or neutral? Pinpoint their interests and how they view alternatives. 

Provide Evidence

Persuasion requires you to present evidence: strong data in multiple forms (stories, graphs, images, metaphors and examples). Make your position come alive by using vivid language that complements graphics. In most cases, a rock-solid argument: 

o Is logical and consistent with facts and experience

o Favorably addresses your audience’s interests

o Eliminates or neutralizes competing alternatives

o Recognizes and deals with office politics

o Receives endorsements from objective, authoritative third parties

Connect Emotionally

Your connection to your audience must demonstrate both intellectual and emotional commitment to your position. Successful persuaders cultivate an accurate sense of their audience’s emotional state, and they adjust their arguments’ tone accordingly. Whatever your position, you must match your emotional fervor to your audience’s ability to receive your message.

Virtual Teams

It’s even harder to persuade when your relationships are electronically based. Without face-to-face meetings, you cannot gather critical nonverbal cues that help you connect with others. If you usually communicate by email, arrange frequent phone conferences to interact on a more personal level. While actual meetings require travel expenses, they may be well worth the cost.

Four Ways to Fail at Persuasion

Most leaders attempt to persuade through logic, persistence and personal enthusiasm. In reality, this model is a setup for failure. You blunder when you:

1. Make your case with a hard sell. Assailing colleagues with preconceived ideas from the get-go gives potential opponents a clear target for battle.

2. Resist compromise. To buy into your proposal, people want to see if you’re flexible enough to respond to their concerns. Compromises often lead to more sustainable solutions.

3. Think the secret of persuasion lies in presenting great arguments. Your credibility—as well as your ability to create a mutually beneficial framework, connect on the right emotional level and communicate through vivid language that makes arguments come alive—are equally important.

4. Assume persuasion is a one-shot effort. Persuasion is a process, not an event. It’s rarely possible to arrive at a shared solution on the first try. 

Resources

Conger, J.A. (1998) Winning ’Em Over: A New Model for Management in the Age of Persuasion. Simon & Schuster. New York NY.

Getting People On Board. (2005) The Results-Driven Manager Series. Harvard Business School Press. Boston MA.

Power, Influence, and Persuasion: Sell Your Ideas and Make Things Happen. (2005) Harvard Business Essentials. Harvard Business School Press. Boston MA.

CoachAnovick.com

Developing Potential, Producing Results

Paul Anovick

201-445-2822

No More Jerks at Work: Preventing Desk Rage

It’s a sign of the times when a well-known Stanford professor and best-selling author publishes a book titled The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t (Warner Business Books, 2007).

Certainly, everyone knows what Robert I. Sutton is talking about. We’ve all experienced the nastiness of a tormentor or unconstrained egomaniac who abuses power and intimidates others.

Jerks do not go undetected for long. Raging maniacs are easy to catch and discipline. More often, however, real damage occurs after covert backstabbing and hypocrisy.

Jerk Behaviors

According to Sutton, everyday jerk behaviors include:

1.    Personal insults and innuendoes
2.    Invading one’s personal space or territory
3.    Uninvited physical contact
4.    Threats and intimidation, verbal and nonverbal
5.    Sarcastic jokes, teasing and disguised insults
6.    Email flames
7.    Status slaps intended to humiliate
8.    Rude interruptions
9.    Two-faced attacks
10.    Dirty looks, grimaces, eye-rolling
11.    Treating people as though they’re invisible, keeping them out of the loop

To qualify as a true jerk, one must display a persistent pattern and a history of episodes that lead others to feel humiliated and disrespected. And a boss who’s a jerk often causes anger, frustration, high turnover, absenteeism and, in extreme cases, violence.

A jerk poisons more than one victim. The damage spreads to coworkers, family members and friends who watch or hear about attacks, creating a larger pool of secondhand sufferers. The result is devastating, zapping people’s energy and causing absenteeism, loss of productivity, high turnover, depression and disengagement.

Organizations may inadvertently shelter jerks and, in some cases, promote and forgive them. The message: It’s OK to be a jerk, as long as you produce results. These individuals may be considered eccentric or artistic in temperament.

But organizations that shelter jerks risk greater legal costs because of victims’ claims of sexual harassment and discrimination. While there is no law prohibiting equal-opportunity jerk behaviors, companies that fail to discipline or weed out bullies find themselves vulnerable to expensive and difficult employment litigation.

The Costs of Harboring a Jerk

Sutton lists factors to consider when calculating the cost of protecting versus firing an abusive jerk. The consequences of failing to discipline an offender or sever employment include:

1.    Distraction from tasks 
2.    Reduced productivity
3.    Reduced psychological safety, more fear, less creativity 
4.    Loss of motivation and energy—disengagement
5.    Stress-induced illness
6.    Impaired mental functioning
7.    Absenteeism
8.    High turnover
9.    Higher-than-average theft or loss rates
10.    Loss of focus on strategically important goals

Also consider these additional management chores, with time spent:

1.    Appeasing, calming, counseling or disciplining
2.    Cooling out victims
3.    Managing dissatisfied customers, suppliers and other key outsiders
4.    Reorganizing teams and departments 
5.    Interviewing, recruiting and training replacements
6.    Managing your own burnout and stress

Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely

Some workplaces encourage everyone to act competitively. Enron, for example, was an organizational culture in which winning and making the numbers counted more than interpersonal relationships.

Leaders in most organizations not only get paid more than others; they also enjoy constant deference and false flattery. A huge body of research shows that when people are put in positions of power, they:

•    Start talking more
•    Take what they want for themselves
•    Ignore what other people say or want
•    Start ignoring how less powerful people react to their behavior
•    Start acting more rudely
•    Generally treat any situation or person as a means for satisfying their own needs

Studies show power corrupts people and causes them to act as though they’re above rules meant for others—and this is widely accepted. Even trivial power advantages can change how people think and act, and usually for the worse.

This doesn’t, however, mean you can eliminate the pecking order. Some people are more important to the organization than others because they are more difficult to replace or have more essential skills. This is the power-performance paradox.

Top 10 Rules for Enforcing a “No Jerks at Work” Rule

Having all of the right business philosophies and management practices in place to support the “no jerks at work” rule is meaningless unless you treat the person right in front of you, right now, in the right way. It’s the little things that make the big differences:

1.    Say the rule, write it down, and act on it. If you have a policy, make sure you act on it.
2.    Jerks will hire other jerks. Don’t include them in hiring decisions.
3.    Get rid of jerks fast. Organizations generally wait too long to fire jerks.
4.    Treat certified jerks as incompetent employees. Even if people perform extraordinarily well and achieve great results, persistent meanness should be equated with incompetence.
5.    Power breeds nastiness. Giving people even a little bit of power can turn them into big jerks.
6.    Embrace the power-performance paradox. Downplay and reduce unnecessary status differences.
7.    Manage moments, not just practices, policies and systems. Change the little things, and big things will follow. 
8.    Model and teach constructive confrontation. Make sure people know when and how to argue respectfully.
9.    Adopt a one-jerk rule. If you permit one jerk to stay, use a reverse role-model approach to remind people of what not to do.
10. The bottom line: Link big policies to small decencies. When people talk to one another and work together with respect, managing jerk behaviors is natural.

Paul Anovick

Anovick Associates

Developing Potential, Producing Results

201-445-2822

Certainly, everyone knows what Robert I. Sutton is talking about. We’ve all experienced the nastiness of a tormentor or unconstrained egomaniac who abuses power and intimidates others.

Jerks do not go undetected for long. Raging maniacs are easy to catch and discipline. More often, however, real damage occurs after covert backstabbing and hypocrisy.

Jerk Behaviors

According to Sutton, everyday jerk behaviors include:

1.    Personal insults and innuendoes
2.    Invading one’s personal space or territory
3.    Uninvited physical contact
4.    Threats and intimidation, verbal and nonverbal
5.    Sarcastic jokes, teasing and disguised insults
6.    Email flames
7.    Status slaps intended to humiliate
8.    Rude interruptions
9.    Two-faced attacks
10.    Dirty looks, grimaces, eye-rolling
11.    Treating people as though they’re invisible, keeping them out of the loop

To qualify as a true jerk, one must display a persistent pattern and a history of episodes that lead others to feel humiliated and disrespected. And a boss who’s a jerk often causes anger, frustration, high turnover, absenteeism and, in extreme cases, violence.

A jerk poisons more than one victim. The damage spreads to coworkers, family members and friends who watch or hear about attacks, creating a larger pool of secondhand sufferers. The result is devastating, zapping people’s energy and causing absenteeism, loss of productivity, high turnover, depression and disengagement.

Organizations may inadvertently shelter jerks and, in some cases, promote and forgive them. The message: It’s OK to be a jerk, as long as you produce results. These individuals may be considered eccentric or artistic in temperament.

But organizations that shelter jerks risk greater legal costs because of victims’ claims of sexual harassment and discrimination. While there is no law prohibiting equal-opportunity jerk behaviors, companies that fail to discipline or weed out bullies find themselves vulnerable to expensive and difficult employment litigation.

The Costs of Harboring a Jerk

Sutton lists factors to consider when calculating the cost of protecting versus firing an abusive jerk. The consequences of failing to discipline an offender or sever employment include:

1.    Distraction from tasks 
2.    Reduced productivity
3.    Reduced psychological safety, more fear, less creativity 
4.    Loss of motivation and energy—disengagement
5.    Stress-induced illness
6.    Impaired mental functioning
7.    Absenteeism
8.    High turnover
9.    Higher-than-average theft or loss rates
10.    Loss of focus on strategically important goals

Also consider these additional management chores, with time spent:

1.    Appeasing, calming, counseling or disciplining
2.    Cooling out victims
3.    Managing dissatisfied customers, suppliers and other key outsiders
4.    Reorganizing teams and departments 
5.    Interviewing, recruiting and training replacements
6.    Managing your own burnout and stress

Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely

Some workplaces encourage everyone to act competitively. Enron, for example, was an organizational culture in which winning and making the numbers counted more than interpersonal relationships.

Leaders in most organizations not only get paid more than others; they also enjoy constant deference and false flattery. A huge body of research shows that when people are put in positions of power, they:

•    Start talking more
•    Take what they want for themselves
•    Ignore what other people say or want
•    Start ignoring how less powerful people react to their behavior
•    Start acting more rudely
•    Generally treat any situation or person as a means for satisfying their own needs

Studies show power corrupts people and causes them to act as though they’re above rules meant for others—and this is widely accepted. Even trivial power advantages can change how people think and act, and usually for the worse.

This doesn’t, however, mean you can eliminate the pecking order. Some people are more important to the organization than others because they are more difficult to replace or have more essential skills. This is the power-performance paradox.

Top 10 Rules for Enforcing a “No Jerks at Work” Rule

Having all of the right business philosophies and management practices in place to support the “no jerks at work” rule is meaningless unless you treat the person right in front of you, right now, in the right way. It’s the little things that make the big differences:

1.    Say the rule, write it down, and act on it. If you have a policy, make sure you act on it.
2.    Jerks will hire other jerks. Don’t include them in hiring decisions.
3.    Get rid of jerks fast. Organizations generally wait too long to fire jerks.
4.    Treat certified jerks as incompetent employees. Even if people perform extraordinarily well and achieve great results, persistent meanness should be equated with incompetence.
5.    Power breeds nastiness. Giving people even a little bit of power can turn them into big jerks.
6.    Embrace the power-performance paradox. Downplay and reduce unnecessary status differences.
7.    Manage moments, not just practices, policies and systems. Change the little things, and big things will follow. 
8.    Model and teach constructive confrontation. Make sure people know when and how to argue respectfully.
9.    Adopt a one-jerk rule. If you permit one jerk to stay, use a reverse role-model approach to remind people of what not to do.
10. The bottom line: Link big policies to small decencies. When people talk to one another and work together with respect, managing jerk behaviors is natural.

Paul Anovick

Anovick Associates

Developing Potential, Producing Results

201-445-2822

A Leadership Apprenticeship Model

CEO turnover has increased sharply in recent years. CEOs are failing sooner, leaving companies in turmoil. Today’s companies are short on quantity and quality of potential leaders. When a company fails to produce the leaders it needs, executives are recruited from the outside — a move that’s risky, difficult and more costly.

A New Approach

Ram Charan outlines a remedy for the leadership crisis in his recent book, Leaders at All Levels. His Apprenticeship Model concludes:

• Not everyone can become a leader. No amount of classroom instruction can supply leadership qualities. We can recognize future leaders if we know what to look for.
• Leadership ability is developed through practice and self-correction. People who have the right talent can accelerate their growth as long as each new job assignment helps them build their core capabilities and acquire new ones, provided they’re given timely and precise feedback.
• The CEO job requires giant leaps in learning. Leaders will not be prepared to lead large companies unless each job experience is much more complex than the one before.

Early Recognition of Leadership Talent

Companies must ensure that potential leadership talent is spotted early and developed thoroughly. Those with high potential to succeed at the highest levels should be:

1. Allowed to spread their wings early
2. Encouraged to move in big leaps
3. Given a variety of challenges tailored to their particular strengths and developmental needs
4. Closely watched to see which talents prove reliable
5. Observed for limitations that may be emerging
6. Given ongoing feedback on every aspect of leadership
7. Given feedback on business and people issues by leaders with business savvy who are close to the everyday work environment

The following assessment tool will identify strengths and deficits in your company’s leadership development capabilities.

Does Your Company Know How to 
Develop Leaders for the Highest Levels?

Rate your company on a scale from 1 to 10

1. Developing other executives is an important part of every leader’s job at my company. Leaders are expected to devote considerable energy and a minimum of 20% of their quality time to this task.

2. Leaders who identify and develop other leaders are rewarded and recognized for doing so.

3. Bosses regularly coach leaders on the one or two most important areas in which they need to improve, such as specific aspects of business acumen or relationship skills.

4. Evaluations, to be conducted at least once a year, consider not just what the leader achieved, but also how and under what circumstances.

5. Leaders pool their insights to determine how a junior leader may develop and where he/she should go next.

6. The most promising leaders often receive more challenging assignments that may be far outside their demonstrated area of expertise.

7. Leaders on development paths aren’t kept waiting for job openings. They receive challenging new assignments as soon as they’re ready for them, or even just before.

8. Assessments of leaders’ talents are precise, balanced and complete. They are separate from annual performance appraisals.

9. The leadership development process is as consistent and rigorous as those for business items like revenues, margins or cash.

10. HR ensures leaders at all levels actively develop other leaders and plan their succession. HR provides useful input to help up-and-coming leaders and their bosses find the right job fit.

Spotting the Right Leadership DNA

Young executives who are smart, creative and financially adept command attention and respect. They combine their mental abilities with a strong work ethic and drive to achieve. They often get promoted quickly, but they may actually lack the right leadership traits.

The best performers are usually the most visible, but they don’t necessarily have leadership essentials. Many execs confuse the two issues and identify the wrong people as high potential.

As with DNA, two strands of a double helix fuel business leaders’ inner engine:

1. People acumen: the ability to harness others’ energy
2. Business acumen: understanding how a business makes money

When future leaders are in their 20s, these strands are already in place.

Managing the Apprenticeship System

Few companies systematically compile useful information about their leadership resources. They have formal routines for collecting financial data and other indicators, but not for leadership development — the very foundation of business success.

Here are the criteria for managing the Apprenticeship Model:

• Continually revisit the criteria and methods for identifying leadership talent to remain attuned to external changes
• Assign individuals with leadership talent to a sequence of challenging work that builds capabilities while meeting current organizational needs
• Provide rigorous feedback to speed leaders’ development
• Increase each leader’s visibility within the company to solidify his or her connection with the business and allow other leaders to get to know the individual in depth
• Recognize and reward the best performers and adjust the talent tracks for those who fail to meet the standards
• Periodically report on the numbers and types of leaders at various levels and assess any current or anticipated gaps
Keep the board informed about the strength of the company’s leadership bench, expose board members to leaders several tiers below the CEO, and help members get to know succession candidates in depth.

Take Charge of Your Own Career

Even if a company doesn’t institute an Apprenticeship Model, individual leaders can and should embrace the concept. Leaders who believe they have undiscovered high potential should take charge of their own learning and development.

Leaders should be aware of their specific talents and whether they’re being fully utilized and developed. If companies are underutilizing them, they should actively seek environments where their talents can be used, recognized, encouraged and developed.

Identifying your potential requires introspection and brutal honesty. Functional expertise becomes less important than other leadership capabilities as you rise higher in a company.

This work is best done with an experienced executive coach who can help you find the optimal developmental opportunities and mentors within your organization.

Paul Anovick

Anovick Associates

Developing Potential, Producing Results

201-445-2822

A New Approach

Ram Charan outlines a remedy for the leadership crisis in his recent book, Leaders at All Levels. His Apprenticeship Model concludes:

• Not everyone can become a leader. No amount of classroom instruction can supply leadership qualities. We can recognize future leaders if we know what to look for.
• Leadership ability is developed through practice and self-correction. People who have the right talent can accelerate their growth as long as each new job assignment helps them build their core capabilities and acquire new ones, provided they’re given timely and precise feedback.
• The CEO job requires giant leaps in learning. Leaders will not be prepared to lead large companies unless each job experience is much more complex than the one before.

Early Recognition of Leadership Talent

Companies must ensure that potential leadership talent is spotted early and developed thoroughly. Those with high potential to succeed at the highest levels should be:

1. Allowed to spread their wings early
2. Encouraged to move in big leaps
3. Given a variety of challenges tailored to their particular strengths and developmental needs
4. Closely watched to see which talents prove reliable
5. Observed for limitations that may be emerging
6. Given ongoing feedback on every aspect of leadership
7. Given feedback on business and people issues by leaders with business savvy who are close to the everyday work environment

The following assessment tool will identify strengths and deficits in your company’s leadership development capabilities.

Does Your Company Know How to 
Develop Leaders for the Highest Levels?

Rate your company on a scale from 1 to 10

1. Developing other executives is an important part of every leader’s job at my company. Leaders are expected to devote considerable energy and a minimum of 20% of their quality time to this task.

2. Leaders who identify and develop other leaders are rewarded and recognized for doing so.

3. Bosses regularly coach leaders on the one or two most important areas in which they need to improve, such as specific aspects of business acumen or relationship skills.

4. Evaluations, to be conducted at least once a year, consider not just what the leader achieved, but also how and under what circumstances.

5. Leaders pool their insights to determine how a junior leader may develop and where he/she should go next.

6. The most promising leaders often receive more challenging assignments that may be far outside their demonstrated area of expertise.

7. Leaders on development paths aren’t kept waiting for job openings. They receive challenging new assignments as soon as they’re ready for them, or even just before.

8. Assessments of leaders’ talents are precise, balanced and complete. They are separate from annual performance appraisals.

9. The leadership development process is as consistent and rigorous as those for business items like revenues, margins or cash.

10. HR ensures leaders at all levels actively develop other leaders and plan their succession. HR provides useful input to help up-and-coming leaders and their bosses find the right job fit.

Spotting the Right Leadership DNA

Young executives who are smart, creative and financially adept command attention and respect. They combine their mental abilities with a strong work ethic and drive to achieve. They often get promoted quickly, but they may actually lack the right leadership traits.

The best performers are usually the most visible, but they don’t necessarily have leadership essentials. Many execs confuse the two issues and identify the wrong people as high potential.

As with DNA, two strands of a double helix fuel business leaders’ inner engine:

1. People acumen: the ability to harness others’ energy
2. Business acumen: understanding how a business makes money

When future leaders are in their 20s, these strands are already in place.

Managing the Apprenticeship System

Few companies systematically compile useful information about their leadership resources. They have formal routines for collecting financial data and other indicators, but not for leadership development — the very foundation of business success.

Here are the criteria for managing the Apprenticeship Model:

• Continually revisit the criteria and methods for identifying leadership talent to remain attuned to external changes
• Assign individuals with leadership talent to a sequence of challenging work that builds capabilities while meeting current organizational needs
• Provide rigorous feedback to speed leaders’ development
• Increase each leader’s visibility within the company to solidify his or her connection with the business and allow other leaders to get to know the individual in depth
• Recognize and reward the best performers and adjust the talent tracks for those who fail to meet the standards
• Periodically report on the numbers and types of leaders at various levels and assess any current or anticipated gaps
Keep the board informed about the strength of the company’s leadership bench, expose board members to leaders several tiers below the CEO, and help members get to know succession candidates in depth.

Take Charge of Your Own Career

Even if a company doesn’t institute an Apprenticeship Model, individual leaders can and should embrace the concept. Leaders who believe they have undiscovered high potential should take charge of their own learning and development.

Leaders should be aware of their specific talents and whether they’re being fully utilized and developed. If companies are underutilizing them, they should actively seek environments where their talents can be used, recognized, encouraged and developed.

Identifying your potential requires introspection and brutal honesty. Functional expertise becomes less important than other leadership capabilities as you rise higher in a company.

This work is best done with an experienced executive coach who can help you find the optimal developmental opportunities and mentors within your organization.

Paul Anovick

Anovick Associates

Developing Potential, Producing Results

201-445-2822

Once Again, Just How Do You Motivate People?

You know you have a talented group of employees. All of this talent is meaningless, however, if you cannot motivate people to produce their best work.

When people feel inspired to live up to their full potential, companies thrive:

• People come up with new ideas about how to solve your company’s most pressing problems.

• People get along well and collaborate in teams to create new ways of doing things that can revolutionize the marketplace for your products and services.

• People work with boundless energy, giving their time, enthusiasm and drive to forward the company mission.

• Even during challenging times, your people remain loyal.

• People take pride in their work and feel responsible for the company’s future.

A Paycheck Isn’t Enough

Many people look to their supervisor or team leader to supply the inspiration for becoming fully engaged in the work they do. It’s up to you to map the path that leads to the results you need.

Even in a healthy economy, you must supply more than a paycheck to motivate people to perform optimally. Meaningful work is more important than money for most people. They want to feel they’re part of something larger than themselves—needed and challenged.

You don’t need expensive training programs or complex compensation plans to connect your people to what really matters to them. Instead, create a sense of “we’re all in this together” by sharing what you know about the company’s business plans.

Get to know what motivates each of your employees. You can determine this by observing their level of enthusiasm and interest in various parts of a project, be it the tech side of how things work or their desire to lead the team. You can then adapt your communication style and recognition systems to each person’s intrinsic motivation.

8 Career Anchors: What Matters Most

More than 30 years ago, Edgar Schein, a Sloan Fellows Professor of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, proposed that people are primarily motivated by one of eight career anchors:

1. Technical/functional competence
2. General managerial competence
3. Autonomy/independence
4. Security/stability
5. Entrepreneurial creativity
6. Sense of service
7. Pure challenge
8. Freedom to organize themselves around their private lives

Once you understand each career anchor, you can determine the one that best fits each person on your team (or ask employees to help define what’s most important to them). Ultimately, the people who work for you must communicate what matters most to them, and you, as the manager, must continually ask for this information.

Fostering Commitment Beyond the Job

Motivated people demonstrate several distinctive personal qualities:

1. They are optimistic, yet realistic about limitations.
2. They take pride in their work.
3. They build relationships of mutual trust with their managers.
4. They manage their time well, prioritizing appropriately to take full advantage of their energy and creativity.
5. They take steps to avoid burnout.

When you motivate your people to excel, their energy and creativity ripple across the entire organization. Motivated people make others feel fully engaged in their work and inspire others to focus on possibilities instead of problems. They feel responsible for entire business processes, not just their own tasks.

You can foster commitment beyond a task or job by clarifying the company’s fundamental objectives and then demonstrating ways to measure a goal’s progress. You can challenge people to identify opportunities to leverage existing knowledge and make sure they understand how all of the company’s disparate parts work together.

Open-Book Management Style

An open-book bonus system is a powerful incentive program, providing substantial rewards to those who improve performance. Such systems allow employees to track their progress toward the bonus over the course of the year. You can tie a unit’s performance to compensation in the following ways:

1. Large companies have employee stock-ownership plans. When workers are encouraged to become shareholders, they can be reminded of their interest in the company’s long-term health.

2. Many companies also have profit-sharing programs. People know high performance ultimately contributes to plan payouts, and they recognize that better-performing units tend to be rewarded more frequently than underperforming ones over time.

3. Pride is a form of compensation, and people often take it as seriously as money. Open-book companies challenge people to be their best and share the scoreboard that shows how they compare to their competitors, whether internal or external.

4. Small rewards are sometimes as meaningful as larger ones. Achievement of customer service targets, shipment percentages and similar goals can be celebrated with pizza lunches, ballgame tickets or simple recognition.

9 Steps to Creating a Great Workplace

The Gallup Organization interviewed about 1 million workers, including 80,000 managers, 
over the last 25 years. Those surveyed were asked about all aspects of their work life. Gallup researchers found that people stay with a company largely because of the quality of their managers.

So, how can you start creating a great workplace?

1. Help people see the purpose of what they do. People stay at jobs that are intellectually stimulating or personally rewarding.

2. Expect a lot. Challenge your people to not only meet their goals, but to exceed them.

3. Don’t dictate how to work. Good companies set high standards, but they’re flexible about how people can meet them.

4. Be really available. Managers’ availability is a crucial element in successful companies.

5. Break the Golden Rule. Treat people not as you would like to be treated, but as they would like to be treated.

6. Get the word out—in 24 hours or less. Let your people know within 24 hours about the issues discussed in your management meetings.

7. Make sure people have what they need to do their jobs. Next to knowing what’s expected of them, employees are most productive when given the materials and equipment needed to do their jobs.

8. Say thanks.

9. Have fun!

Paul Anovick

Anovick Associates

Developing Potential, Producing Results

201-445-2822

When people feel inspired to live up to their full potential, companies thrive:

• People come up with new ideas about how to solve your company’s most pressing problems.

• People get along well and collaborate in teams to create new ways of doing things that can revolutionize the marketplace for your products and services.

• People work with boundless energy, giving their time, enthusiasm and drive to forward the company mission.

• Even during challenging times, your people remain loyal.

• People take pride in their work and feel responsible for the company’s future.

A Paycheck Isn’t Enough

Many people look to their supervisor or team leader to supply the inspiration for becoming fully engaged in the work they do. It’s up to you to map the path that leads to the results you need.

Even in a healthy economy, you must supply more than a paycheck to motivate people to perform optimally. Meaningful work is more important than money for most people. They want to feel they’re part of something larger than themselves—needed and challenged.

You don’t need expensive training programs or complex compensation plans to connect your people to what really matters to them. Instead, create a sense of “we’re all in this together” by sharing what you know about the company’s business plans.

Get to know what motivates each of your employees. You can determine this by observing their level of enthusiasm and interest in various parts of a project, be it the tech side of how things work or their desire to lead the team. You can then adapt your communication style and recognition systems to each person’s intrinsic motivation.

8 Career Anchors: What Matters Most

More than 30 years ago, Edgar Schein, a Sloan Fellows Professor of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, proposed that people are primarily motivated by one of eight career anchors:

1. Technical/functional competence
2. General managerial competence
3. Autonomy/independence
4. Security/stability
5. Entrepreneurial creativity
6. Sense of service
7. Pure challenge
8. Freedom to organize themselves around their private lives

Once you understand each career anchor, you can determine the one that best fits each person on your team (or ask employees to help define what’s most important to them). Ultimately, the people who work for you must communicate what matters most to them, and you, as the manager, must continually ask for this information.

Fostering Commitment Beyond the Job

Motivated people demonstrate several distinctive personal qualities:

1. They are optimistic, yet realistic about limitations.
2. They take pride in their work.
3. They build relationships of mutual trust with their managers.
4. They manage their time well, prioritizing appropriately to take full advantage of their energy and creativity.
5. They take steps to avoid burnout.

When you motivate your people to excel, their energy and creativity ripple across the entire organization. Motivated people make others feel fully engaged in their work and inspire others to focus on possibilities instead of problems. They feel responsible for entire business processes, not just their own tasks.

You can foster commitment beyond a task or job by clarifying the company’s fundamental objectives and then demonstrating ways to measure a goal’s progress. You can challenge people to identify opportunities to leverage existing knowledge and make sure they understand how all of the company’s disparate parts work together.

Open-Book Management Style

An open-book bonus system is a powerful incentive program, providing substantial rewards to those who improve performance. Such systems allow employees to track their progress toward the bonus over the course of the year. You can tie a unit’s performance to compensation in the following ways:

1. Large companies have employee stock-ownership plans. When workers are encouraged to become shareholders, they can be reminded of their interest in the company’s long-term health.

2. Many companies also have profit-sharing programs. People know high performance ultimately contributes to plan payouts, and they recognize that better-performing units tend to be rewarded more frequently than underperforming ones over time.

3. Pride is a form of compensation, and people often take it as seriously as money. Open-book companies challenge people to be their best and share the scoreboard that shows how they compare to their competitors, whether internal or external.

4. Small rewards are sometimes as meaningful as larger ones. Achievement of customer service targets, shipment percentages and similar goals can be celebrated with pizza lunches, ballgame tickets or simple recognition.

9 Steps to Creating a Great Workplace

The Gallup Organization interviewed about 1 million workers, including 80,000 managers, 
over the last 25 years. Those surveyed were asked about all aspects of their work life. Gallup researchers found that people stay with a company largely because of the quality of their managers.

So, how can you start creating a great workplace?

1. Help people see the purpose of what they do. People stay at jobs that are intellectually stimulating or personally rewarding.

2. Expect a lot. Challenge your people to not only meet their goals, but to exceed them.

3. Don’t dictate how to work. Good companies set high standards, but they’re flexible about how people can meet them.

4. Be really available. Managers’ availability is a crucial element in successful companies.

5. Break the Golden Rule. Treat people not as you would like to be treated, but as they would like to be treated.

6. Get the word out—in 24 hours or less. Let your people know within 24 hours about the issues discussed in your management meetings.

7. Make sure people have what they need to do their jobs. Next to knowing what’s expected of them, employees are most productive when given the materials and equipment needed to do their jobs.

8. Say thanks.

9. Have fun!

Paul Anovick

Anovick Associates

Developing Potential, Producing Results

201-445-2822

Leadership and My Son...July 5th

On July 5, 1992 my third son was born…I now have four sons, I love them all and I am very proud of who they are. Today I want to focus on my July 5th son.

Kahlil Gibran:

“Your children are not your children.
They come through you but not from you.
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
So He loves also the bow that is stable.”

So why is this important to you? Leadership is like parenting. The qualities of effective parenting are consistent with effective leadership. Your children watch what you do not what you say. Only ask of them what you are able to live up to. Lead by example.

Gibran says: “You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.” An effective leader tells people what to do, not how to do it. They may surprise you with their creative solution.

On July 4th, 1992 we missed by a few hours of having a “Born on the 4th of July” baby, our son was born on July 5th. This young man has been an inspiration to me ever since. As a young man he has faced adversity and overcome challenges that most people would pray they would not have to deal with at any time in their lives. He has dealt with cards life has given him and moved on with courage, grace, stoicism and wisdom. This young man is an inspiration to those who know him. On this day I honor my son and feel secure in the future of our country knowing that we continue to produce fine young people such as this man.

Once Again, Just How Do You Motivate People?

You know you have a talented group of employees. All of this talent is meaningless, however, if you cannot motivate people to produce their best work.

When people feel inspired to live up to their full potential, companies thrive:

• People come up with new ideas about how to solve your company’s most pressing problems.

• People get along well and collaborate in teams to create new ways of doing things that can revolutionize the marketplace for your products and services.

• People work with boundless energy, giving their time, enthusiasm and drive to forward the company mission.

• Even during challenging times, your people remain loyal.

• People take pride in their work and feel responsible for the company’s future.

A Paycheck Isn’t Enough

Many people look to their supervisor or team leader to supply the inspiration for becoming fully engaged in the work they do. It’s up to you to map the path that leads to the results you need.

Even in a healthy economy, you must supply more than a paycheck to motivate people to perform optimally. Meaningful work is more important than money for most people. They want to feel they’re part of something larger than themselves—needed and challenged.

You don’t need expensive training programs or complex compensation plans to connect your people to what really matters to them. Instead, create a sense of “we’re all in this together” by sharing what you know about the company’s business plans.

Get to know what motivates each of your employees. You can determine this by observing their level of enthusiasm and interest in various parts of a project, be it the tech side of how things work or their desire to lead the team. You can then adapt your communication style and recognition systems to each person’s intrinsic motivation.

8 Career Anchors: What Matters Most

More than 30 years ago, Edgar Schein, a Sloan Fellows Professor of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, proposed that people are primarily motivated by one of eight career anchors:

1. Technical/functional competence
2. General managerial competence
3. Autonomy/independence
4. Security/stability
5. Entrepreneurial creativity
6. Sense of service
7. Pure challenge
8. Freedom to organize themselves around their private lives

Once you understand each career anchor, you can determine the one that best fits each person on your team (or ask employees to help define what’s most important to them). Ultimately, the people who work for you must communicate what matters most to them, and you, as the manager, must continually ask for this information.

Fostering Commitment Beyond the Job

Motivated people demonstrate several distinctive personal qualities:

1. They are optimistic, yet realistic about limitations.
2. They take pride in their work.
3. They build relationships of mutual trust with their managers.
4. They manage their time well, prioritizing appropriately to take full advantage of their energy and creativity.
5. They take steps to avoid burnout.

When you motivate your people to excel, their energy and creativity ripple across the entire organization. Motivated people make others feel fully engaged in their work and inspire others to focus on possibilities instead of problems. They feel responsible for entire business processes, not just their own tasks.

You can foster commitment beyond a task or job by clarifying the company’s fundamental objectives and then demonstrating ways to measure a goal’s progress. You can challenge people to identify opportunities to leverage existing knowledge and make sure they understand how all of the company’s disparate parts work together.

Open-Book Management Style

An open-book bonus system is a powerful incentive program, providing substantial rewards to those who improve performance. Such systems allow employees to track their progress toward the bonus over the course of the year. You can tie a unit’s performance to compensation in the following ways:

1. Large companies have employee stock-ownership plans. When workers are encouraged to become shareholders, they can be reminded of their interest in the company’s long-term health.

2. Many companies also have profit-sharing programs. People know high performance ultimately contributes to plan payouts, and they recognize that better-performing units tend to be rewarded more frequently than underperforming ones over time.

3. Pride is a form of compensation, and people often take it as seriously as money. Open-book companies challenge people to be their best and share the scoreboard that shows how they compare to their competitors, whether internal or external.

4. Small rewards are sometimes as meaningful as larger ones. Achievement of customer service targets, shipment percentages and similar goals can be celebrated with pizza lunches, ballgame tickets or simple recognition.

9 Steps to Creating a Great Workplace

The Gallup Organization interviewed about 1 million workers, including 80,000 managers,
over the last 25 years. Those surveyed were asked about all aspects of their work life. Gallup researchers found that people stay with a company largely because of the quality of their managers.

So, how can you start creating a great workplace?

1. Help people see the purpose of what they do. People stay at jobs that are intellectually stimulating or personally rewarding.

2. Expect a lot. Challenge your people to not only meet their goals, but to exceed them.

3. Don’t dictate how to work. Good companies set high standards, but they’re flexible about how people can meet them.

4. Be really available. Managers’ availability is a crucial element in successful companies.

5. Break the Golden Rule. Treat people not as you would like to be treated, but as they would like to be treated.

6. Get the word out—in 24 hours or less. Let your people know within 24 hours about the issues discussed in your management meetings.

7. Make sure people have what they need to do their jobs. Next to knowing what’s expected of them, employees are most productive when given the materials and equipment needed to do their jobs.

8. Say thanks.

9. Have fun!

Managing Across Generations: Motivating Gen Xers

Younger generations — the so-called Gen Xers and New Millennials — comprise half the U.S. work force. The other half consists of 45% Baby Boomers and 5% veterans, many of whom are charged with motivating newer employees.

But what happens when generations don’t share the same values and beliefs about workplace success?

Business consultant Cam Marston presents new insights into managing across the generational divide in Motivating the “What’s In It For Me?” Workforce (2007, John Wiley & Sons). Now, more than ever, American workers born after 1965 aren’t following in their elders’ footsteps. They have different workplace values and definitions of success.

Baby Boomers, born between 1946 and 1965, occupy most positions of power and responsibility on organizational charts. Most of today’s corporate management practices still reflect the systems and values of their predecessors, the veterans.

Gen Xers and Millennials therefore present unique challenges for Boomer managers. They aren’t interested in time-honored traditions or “the way things have always been done.” Rather, they’re single-mindedly focused on what it takes to get ahead and reach their perceived career destination.

This group shuns past definitions of success: climbing the company ladder and earning the rewards that come with greater responsibility. The company ladder, in their view, is irrelevant.

Mature workers and Boomers in managerial and leadership positions struggle with these differing values and beliefs, wondering how to motivate their younger colleagues. If promotions, raises and bonuses fail to motivate, then what does the trick?

We can identify several differences in values. The new generation of workers has:

1. A work ethic that no longer respects or values 10-hour workdays
2. An easily attained competence in new technologies and a facility to master even newer ones with little discomfort
3. Tenuous to nonexistent loyalty to any organization
4. Changed priorities for lifetime goals achievable by employment

The most significant changes in perspective involve time, technology and loyalty.

Time

Different generations value time in distinct ways. For Boomers, time has always been something to invest in the future. They work hard and pride themselves on putting in 55+ hours a week, but they count on future rewards for their efforts. This payout hasn’t always materialized as expected.

Gen Xers and Millennials regard time as something to control, just like money. In fact, to them, time has equal value. Some employers are realizing that time off is a satisfactory trade-off when they can’t pay their younger employees higher salaries.

For younger workers, time itself is a currency, and they aren’t willing to invest it in a career or job with uncertain dividends. In today’s climate of job insecurity, layoffs and changing industries, any employment is potentially unstable. “Why put in long hours?” they wonder.

Technology

Gen Xers and Millenials eagerly embrace technology. After all, they grew up using computers, beginning in preschool. When they interact with older colleagues who are confused and somewhat fearful of technology, a real role reversal often occurs.

It’s critical for leaders to combine the wisdom of experience and the technological savvy of youth to benefit all employees—and the bottom line.

Loyalty

Gen Xers and Millenials have many reasons to question authority, rather than bow to it. They don’t automatically believe their leaders tell the truth. They have heard plenty of lies from presidents, CEOs, legislators and even religious institutions, which bred skepticism.

Instead, younger generations invest their loyalty and trust in individuals. They want to work for the right boss, and they’ll change jobs if they can’t.

The silent generation of mature workers and Boomers never had that luxury. Working for a disagreeable person was something you had to endure.

Company loyalty has gone out the window. Loyalty to an individual is now the No. 1 reason Gen Xers and Millenials stay at a job, especially during the first three years of employment. Dissatisfaction with a boss is the No. 1 reason they quit.

Changed Management Practices

In the late 60s and 70s, individual expression in dress and language appeared for the first time in the workplace. Gray flannel suits and button-down shirts, the de facto uniform for mature workers and older Boomers, fell by the wayside. Personal possessions began decorating work stations and cubicles.

Today, expressions of tastes and preferences are still alive and well within the context of most organizations’ HR rules. Although limited, individuals can express their tastes through personal styles in clothing and desk/cubicle décor.

Today’s workplace also seems to be in constant turmoil because of demands for rapid change:

• Revolving-door management is endemic. CEOs frequently change, and mid-level managers are often eliminated. Work is regularly conducted by teams, in the absence of a readily identifiable hierarchy.

• Since 1998, more than 45,000 mergers and acquisitions of companies valued at $5 million or more have occurred. Job security is an obsolete concept.

Questions to Ask Younger Generations

What is required to lead young people who believe Boomers are outdated and out of touch?
Leaders should ask themselves:

1. What do my employees want from their jobs, bosses and work experience?

2. How do salary, benefits and promotion opportunities affect loyalty?

3. How do my direct reports define themselves? How do one’s job and the company enter into this equation?

4. Do my newer workers believe in paying their dues for a given time period, or are they motivated by challenges and self-fulfillment right from the very beginning?

5. How self-sufficient are my younger workers? Are they still living at home? How much are they committed to their jobs as their only means of support?

For younger generations, the job future has never been more precarious and uncertain. As a leader, one of your primary responsibilities is attracting and retaining employees, especially talented ones. Every manager must learn to make adjustments to get the most from—and give the most to—the vast population of younger employees.

Watch What I Do...Not Just What I Say

This week Eliot Spitzer is in the headlines.  There are many lessons to be learned from this event, however I would like to focus on just one.  In my sessions on Leadership I often demonstrate the above comment… “People watch what you do more than what you say”.Anovick Speech  “Watch what we do…” is also a famous quote from Attorney General John Mitchell as he entered his office of power.  Eliot Spitzer was billed as the “sheriff of Wall Street”; the attorney general’s office was his bully pulpit to crack down on prostitution and “corruption” on Wall Street.  What he really did was advance his agenda and career to higher power as governor of New York only to then be corrupt himself. 

Many people are shocked and disappointed in the actions of Mr. Spitzer, as we should be, however as usual the media is now blaming Democracy and the selection process in politics, government, etc.  This is the same “Blame America First crowd” that we hear from way to often.  This is about an individual that turned out to be weak and deceitful.  Let us not over react about our system of government or how we select our leaders.  It is a very important election year, this event should now focus us on not what candidates say they are going to do but what have they done.  Actions speak louder than words.

Each day that I venture out into America, this is what I see.  Millions of hardworking, industrious, people…up at the crack of dawn traveling the highways, trains and buses to work and to contribute at our companies, schools and organizations that make America the greatest most productive country on this planet.

The headlines go to the Spitzer’s of the world, however the real impact to our future is the entrepreneur who is creating jobs for talented people to be productive at and to lead wonderful lives, the teacher who in a classroom somewhere is inspiring minds of our youth to create and be productive in their lives.  No one really speaks about this, it will not be in the local news or network news tonight… the networks and news organizations have a motto, “If it bleeds…it leads”, so they will not pick up the millions of stories of the daily successes in America. 

Today I want to personally thank all of the workers, managers, leaders, laborers, teachers, scientist, artist, singers, actors and everyone who is out there making a contribution to this wonderful country that we have been blessed to be in right now.  So go ahead and spit on the Spitzer’s of the world and do not waste any more time reading or thinking about them.

A Leadership Apprenticeship Model

CEO turnover has increased sharply in recent years. CEOs are failing sooner, leaving companies in turmoil. Today’s companies are short on quantity and quality of potential leaders. When a company fails to produce the leaders it needs, executives are recruited from the outside — a move that’s risky, difficult and more costly.

A New Approach

Ram Charan outlines a remedy for the leadership crisis in his recent book, Leaders at All Levels. His Apprenticeship Model concludes:

• Not everyone can become a leader. No amount of classroom instruction can supply leadership qualities. We can recognize future leaders if we know what to look for.
• Leadership ability is developed through practice and self-correction. People who have the right talent can accelerate their growth as long as each new job assignment helps them build their core capabilities and acquire new ones, provided they’re given timely and precise feedback.
• The CEO job requires giant leaps in learning. Leaders will not be prepared to lead large companies unless each job experience is much more complex than the one before.

Early Recognition of Leadership Talent

Companies must ensure that potential leadership talent is spotted early and developed thoroughly. Those with high potential to succeed at the highest levels should be:

1. Allowed to spread their wings early
2. Encouraged to move in big leaps
3. Given a variety of challenges tailored to their particular strengths and developmental needs
4. Closely watched to see which talents prove reliable
5. Observed for limitations that may be emerging
6. Given ongoing feedback on every aspect of leadership
7. Given feedback on business and people issues by leaders with business savvy who are close to the everyday work environment

The following assessment tool will identify strengths and deficits in your company’s leadership development capabilities.

Does Your Company Know How to
Develop Leaders for the Highest Levels?

Rate your company on a scale from 1 to 10

1. Developing other executives is an important part of every leader’s job at my company. Leaders are expected to devote considerable energy and a minimum of 20% of their quality time to this task.

2. Leaders who identify and develop other leaders are rewarded and recognized for doing so.

3. Bosses regularly coach leaders on the one or two most important areas in which they need to improve, such as specific aspects of business acumen or relationship skills.

4. Evaluations, to be conducted at least once a year, consider not just what the leader achieved, but also how and under what circumstances.

5. Leaders pool their insights to determine how a junior leader may develop and where he/she should go next.

6. The most promising leaders often receive more challenging assignments that may be far outside their demonstrated area of expertise.

7. Leaders on development paths aren’t kept waiting for job openings. They receive challenging new assignments as soon as they’re ready for them, or even just before.

8. Assessments of leaders’ talents are precise, balanced and complete. They are separate from annual performance appraisals.

9. The leadership development process is as consistent and rigorous as those for business items like revenues, margins or cash.

10. HR ensures leaders at all levels actively develop other leaders and plan their succession. HR provides useful input to help up-and-coming leaders and their bosses find the right job fit.

Spotting the Right Leadership DNA

Young executives who are smart, creative and financially adept command attention and respect. They combine their mental abilities with a strong work ethic and drive to achieve. They often get promoted quickly, but they may actually lack the right leadership traits.

The best performers are usually the most visible, but they don’t necessarily have leadership essentials. Many execs confuse the two issues and identify the wrong people as high potential.

As with DNA, two strands of a double helix fuel business leaders’ inner engine:

1. People acumen: the ability to harness others’ energy
2. Business acumen: understanding how a business makes money

When future leaders are in their 20s, these strands are already in place.

Managing the Apprenticeship System

Few companies systematically compile useful information about their leadership resources. They have formal routines for collecting financial data and other indicators, but not for leadership development — the very foundation of business success.

Here are the criteria for managing the Apprenticeship Model:

• Continually revisit the criteria and methods for identifying leadership talent to remain attuned to external changes
• Assign individuals with leadership talent to a sequence of challenging work that builds capabilities while meeting current organizational needs
• Provide rigorous feedback to speed leaders’ development
• Increase each leader’s visibility within the company to solidify his or her connection with the business and allow other leaders to get to know the individual in depth
• Recognize and reward the best performers and adjust the talent tracks for those who fail to meet the standards
• Periodically report on the numbers and types of leaders at various levels and assess any current or anticipated gaps
Keep the board informed about the strength of the company’s leadership bench, expose board members to leaders several tiers below the CEO, and help members get to know succession candidates in depth.

Take Charge of Your Own Career

Even if a company doesn’t institute an Apprenticeship Model, individual leaders can and should embrace the concept. Leaders who believe they have undiscovered high potential should take charge of their own learning and development.

Leaders should be aware of their specific talents and whether they’re being fully utilized and developed. If companies are underutilizing them, they should actively seek environments where their talents can be used, recognized, encouraged and developed.

Identifying your potential requires introspection and brutal honesty. Functional expertise becomes less important than other leadership capabilities as you rise higher in a company.

This work is best done with an experienced executive coach who can help you find the optimal developmental opportunities and mentors within your organization.