Apr 10, 2011 | Collaboration, Leadership, Management
This note is being written on a plane, somewhere over Asia in the middle of a long flight to the UK to see a few who can contribute to my store of knowledge, and hopefully I to theirs.
It is a time of few distractions, the phone is off, nobody at the door, no meetings scheduled, email is off, just head-time.
Amongst the stuff put aside for such moments is this note from Paul Graham which I think highlights a basic challenge faced by “knowledge workers,” those of us whose contribution is measured by something other than volume of output, the time in attendance, and the appearance of “busy”. It is also a significant challenge for those who are supposed to lead us, rather than just manage our output.
So if you are a leader, I encourage you to apply my rule 1 of marketing: “see it from the other blokes perspective”, next time you find yourself feeling inclined to call a meeting that involves others who work to what Paul has called “makers time”.
Apr 7, 2011 | Leadership, Management
Management and leadership are not the same.
For years I have advocated this self evident truth, and occasionally something comes along to confirm, again, the essential truth that leaders lead, and managers just take care of the details.
Leadership in a tough place is often personified by individuals in the military, none I suspect better than Stan McChrystal former US commander in Afghanistan, who shares on TED.
Mar 30, 2011 | Lean, Management, Operations
The clarion call for improvement, in everything from the minor shop floor activities to big picture strategic implementation is clear. We all need to do more with less, and this requires that we identify which bits of our current activities should be changed, redirected, or trashed.
In effect, there are three questions that should be answered:
- What are the underlying drivers or causes of problems?
- How can we build predictability of outcomes from any particular activity, and group of activities?
- How can we ensure the mistakes of yesterday are not repeated today?
These seemingly simple questions lie at the core of all improvement I initiatives.
Mar 20, 2011 | Leadership, Management, Personal Rant
An often heard claim, but leaders mean it, managers just mouth it.
Creating and nurturing a process of performance assessment should be a focal task of a leader, as it puts money in the bank over time. However, it is hard, confronting, and time consuming work, generally without a short term pay-off, and is virtually impossible to measure via the financial reports, still the default measurement for most.
There are a lot of frameworks out there, and lots of consultants ready to take your money to tell you how to do it, but without a determination to ensure future performance by investing in the capabilities of your employees, outsiders cannot really help.
However, two frameworks that may get you thinking.
The first is an essay by Marty Cagan, a successful venture capitalist in Silicon Valley. Venture capitalists invest in ideas and people to deliver future returns, so being successful, Marty probably knows a thing or two about capability assessment.
The second approaches the challenge in a highly prescriptive manner, but curiously, if you look behind the avalanche of words, you see a similar approach to Marty’s, an analysis of the requirements to generate the required outcomes, analysis of the individual, and description of the gap. It is the Integrated Leadership System (ILS) that has evolved to provide a performance and assessment management framework for the Australian federal Public Service.
Between these two, there is enough to get a conversation started about the best way for your organisation to manage its “Greatest Asset” and hopefully lay the foundations for a system that reflects your needs and environment.
Mar 9, 2011 | Communication, Leadership, Management
There is a big difference between these two states, and they can have a powerful impact on the way organisations react to the decision maker.
Someone who is seen as decisive, but as yet undecided will be have the respect of others, who will usually assist in the process of coming to a decision in a positive manner.
By contrast, someone who is seen as indecisive, will be ignored, and work-arounds will be used to get things done, and at some time, if it is a personal trait, it needs to be removed from behavior patterns, or the individual will be removed.
Mar 8, 2011 | Leadership, Management, Personal Rant
If Australia’s management has been slow to pick up on the need for intensive and innovative energy management programs, is it little wonder, with the litany of indecision, populism, back-stabbing, and just plain lies eminating from Canberra.
The Howard government announced an ETS in 2008, then lost the election, putting the Rudd government in power, espousing a view about the “greatest moral challenge of our time” and delivering a white paper that outlined their CPRS to be implemented in 2010.
Then we had the spectacle of a legislative program being pushed prior to any chance of certainty that may have come out of the Copenhagen group hug, which then failed to deliver on expectations.
Meanwhile, the Liberals had rolled Malcolm Turnbull, a climate change believer who had negotiated a bi-partisan approach to carbon pollution reduction, (illogically to be implemented before Copenhagen)by one vote and taken its bat and ball back to the corner labeled “skeptics”. A bit later, Rudd as PM was convinced by a cabal including his deputy to backpedal on their carbon scheme, and was subsequently rolled.
Now we have a renewal of the Labor Party “determination” to bring in a scheme being championed by said deputy as PM after an unequivacal promise prior to the last election that it would not happen.
Monty Python would shake its head at this lot, which is just what business leaders have done. In the face of the total shambles and indecision, they have moved very cautiously, as outlined in this Business Spectator/Accenture CEO Pulse survey, but nowhere near fast enough to come anywhere near being able to deliver the bi-partisan commitment to a 5% reduction on 2000 emissions by 2020.
From whichever political and climate change perspective you view this debacle of the last 14 years since the Kyoto protocol adopted by the UN in December 1997 it cannot engender any confidence that our “leaders” will actually provide the one thing that business really needs, certainty of the regulatory framework within which they must work and invest for the future.
