Positive Leadership: Great by Choice

‘When the moment comes – when we’re afraid, exhausted, or tempted – what choice do we make? Do we abandon our values? Do we give in? Do we accept average performance because that’s what most everyone else accepts? Do we capitulate to the pressure of the moment? Do we give up on our dreams when we’ve been slammed by brutal facts?

What is clear about great leaders is that they care as much about values as victory, as much about purpose as profit, as much about being useful as being successful. Their drive and standards are ultimately internal, rising from somewhere deep inside.

We are not imprisoned by our circumstances. We are not imprisoned by the luck we get or the inherent unfairness of life. We are not imprisoned by crushing setbacks, self-inflicted mistakes or our past success. We are not imprisoned by the times in which we live, by the number of hours in a day or even the number of hours we’ve granted in our very short lives. In the end, we can only control a tiny sliver of what happens to us. But even so, we are free to choose, free to become great by choice.’ 

Jim Collins & Morten Hansen

Positive Leadership: Great by Choice

Positive Leadership: Clutch!

When asked, are you clutch? Author of Clutch, Paul Sullivan answers: “Yes and no. (…) I’ve been clutch in my personal and professional life, and these have been the areas that have mattered most. But not in golf. What I learned, alas, was that since being clutch isn’t a mystical ability that can be bestowed on somebody, it takes work. But at least for me I know what to do now.”

These are the five traits of people who are 'clutch':

• Focus
• Discipline
• Adaptability
• Being present
• Plus the push and pull of fear and desire.

In this video, Paul Sullivan explains what it means to be Clutch, and how you too can thrive in high pressure situations.

Positive Leadership: Clutch!

Positive Leadership: How Organisations can Demotivate their Employees

Jim Collins — the author of the legendary Good to Great and co-author of the new and equally compelling Great by Choice – has an insightful 3-minute video describing three ways organisations demotivate their employees.

 

Positive Leadership: How Organisations can Demotivate their Employees

Positive Leadership: Achieving True Greatness

When most of us learn a new skill, we work to get just "good enough" and then we go on autopilot. We hit what journalist and bestselling author of Moonwalking with Einstein, Joshua Foer calls the "OK Plateau," where we have gained sufficient skills for our needs and we stop pushing ourselves.

 But experts do it differently.

Looking at the research on everyone from incredible athletes to memory champions, Foer has extracted four principles that describe how to push through the OK Plateau to achieve true greatness.

Watch this fantastic talk to learn strategies for developing expertise in any field.

 

Positive Leadership: Achieving True Greatness

Positive Leadership: Happiness

Everyone wants to be happy, but not everyone knows how.  Today, we will share with you two ways to be happy.   

How do you define "happiness"? Some people think happiness is getting all or most of the things they want. They always have lists of new things they want or are about to get: cars, holidays, fancy clothes, new furniture, or the latest electronic toy.

But often these people are deeply discontented, for no matter how much they acquire, they never seem to have enough. A new acquisition brings them pleasure, but only for a little while. Happiness is always in the future, always appearing, and then disappearing.

Someone once said that there are two ways to be happy: the first is to have all the things you want; the second is to have the wisdom to enjoy the things you have. We even heard someone, recently, say that happiness was wanting what you have. So many ways to define "happiness."

When you practice the "wisdom" way, you are able to appreciate the beauty that exists in the simplest elements of life. Even in hardship, you'll find many reasons to feel joy on a daily basis. Of course, you'll feel good when you acquire something new, but your real and lasting happiness will be found in relationships, in simple pleasures, in nature, and in actions that show love.

If you remember that the time to be happy is now, and the place to be happy is where you are, you'll find a joy that no amount of money can buy. 

Positive Leadership: Happiness

Positive Leadership: What is Leadership?

Here, the former chairwoman of Xerox and the winners of the 2011 Service to America award attempt to answer the question: What is Leadership?

Positive Leadership: What is Leadership?

Positive Leadership: The Source of Pressure

‘Pressure is a heavy feeling that weighs upon your shoulders and it’s brought upon yourself. A lot of other people think it’s brought upon you. Pressure is something you bring on yourself because of your insecurities, your own lack of form, and your concern about the opposition. It can be very different for different people. One person won’t feel it under in any given circumstance and another will feel it greatly. It’s hard to define but when we are feeling it we all know it’s there.’  Andrew Strauss, England Cricket Captain

Events do not create pressure it is only our internal thoughts that do that.  We are responsible for our mind and how it behaves. Therefore the more we train our mind, the better we are able to deal with pressure.

Positive Leadership: The Source of Pressure

Positive Leadership: Beating the Odds

Beating the odds in a fight against a deadly cancer for most people would mean staying alive. For Mark Herzlich, who was diagnosed with bone cancer while he was a football star at Boston College, living meant playing football in the NFL.



 

Positive Leadership: Beating the Odds

Positive Leadership: Advice on Everyday Leadership

In May 2011, Betsy Myers was appointed Founding Director of the Centre for Women & Business at Bentley University.  The centre is a repository of best practices for corporate America to recruit and retain women leaders. Betsy served as a senior adviser to Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign.  Here she gives her advice on everyday leadership from her new book, Take the Lead - 

Positive Leadership: Advice on Everyday Leadership

Positive Leadership: Values

What does getting what you want in life have to do with values?  Let's look at how the two are connected.

You can't get what you want in life until you know what it is you want. And, you'll have a hard time knowing what you want, if you are not clear about what your values are.  You see, if we were to ask you what you really want, what we are actually asking is, "What do you value?"   

Values are guides for daily living that influence your thoughts, feelings, words and deeds.  They shape your personality and give direction to what would otherwise be an aimless, purposeless life.  Your values are reflected in your goals, hopes, dreams, attitudes, interests, opinions, convictions, and behaviour as well as in your problems and worries.   

Values are choices you make from the available alternatives.  Therefore, well-chosen values require an open mind, because you can't choose freely if you don't know what your options and consequences are.  Values are cherished and we fight to keep them because they mean so much to us.  

Finally, to be truly significant, values must move from fantasy into reality and be acted upon.  They cause us to do something, so that we can get and keep what we prize so highly.

What do you value in life? Have you spent much time thinking about it? If not, we strongly suggest that you take time to do so. Start today. Sit down and make a list of all your values.  Then make a list of all your life goals. Do they coincide? If not, maybe you should re-define your goals to match your values, because it is more likely that you will get what you want in life if you do.

   

Positive Leadership: Values

Positive Leadership: Left Brain v Right Brain

In this new RSAnimate, renowned psychiatrist and writer Iain McGilchrist explains how our 'divided brain' has profoundly altered human behaviour, culture and society. Taken from a lecture given by Iain McGilchrist as part of the RSA's free public events programme. To hear the full lecture, go to www.youtube.com/user/theRSAorg#p/u/2/SbUHxC4wiWk

Positive Leadership: Left Brain v Right Brain

Positive Leadership: The Value of Trust

Positive Leadership: The Value of Trust

Positive Leadership: The Role of Chaos in Leader Development

In our view, the best way to develop leaders for the challenges of today is to deliberately introduce chaos into the development process. 

In leader development today, chaos is an imperative. 

Think about that—the idea that you would deliberately introduce chaos into leadership experiences and see how different leaders react to it. 

While we may have enough chaos in our lives, the only way to really test leaders is to see their response when confronted with turmoil.  A wise idea in a tumultuous world?

Positive Leadership: The Role of Chaos in Leader Development

Positive Leadership: The Importance of Character Education

Positive Leadership: The Importance of Character Education

Positive Leadership: A Celebration of Steve's Life

Apple's Senior Vice President of Industrial Design, and a key figure behind the Apple 'revolution, is Englishman, Jony Ive CBE.

Here, he speaks about Steve Jobs at the recent Apple celebration of Jobs' life.

For more, see - http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/10oiuhfvojb23/event/index.html#

Positive Leadership: A Celebration of Steve's Life

Positive Leadership: On Excellence

For 10 years, Tom Peters wrote a syndicated column—"On Excellence"—for the Tribune Media Services. It was carried by over a hundred papers—the flagship carrier was the Chicago Tribune. After Steve Jobs' death, one of his old columns surfaced—on Jobs. It appeared on 8 November 1993, when Steve was still "in the wilderness"—before his subsequently triumphant return to Apple.

Herewith, in full ...

‘On Excellence

Marathoners call it "hitting the wall." You get to a point where you can't go on. But you do. And, miraculously, you come out the other side and finish the race.

Truth is, damn little of merit, in a profession or a hobby, is accomplished without running through a wall or two.

I got to thinking about that while reading Fortune's recent cover story, "America's Toughest Bosses." Some turn "beet red." Others "scream." Some engage in "sadistic" behavior and use tactics that amount to "psychological oppression." While I hardly countenance "Jack Attacks," the tirades by Jack Connors, head of the ad agency Hill Holliday, I also don't believe the best bosses are sweethearts.

The best leaders take their firms and followers to places they've never been before-and, more important, places they never imagined they would reach. The chief's voice may be subdued or, more likely, strident at times. The reason, Fortune acknowledges, is the incredible demands these honchos place, first and foremost, on themselves.

Take Steve Jobs, one of Fortune's seven nasties. I've seen him, in his days at Apple, lose his cool on occasion. Not a particularly pretty sight.

Yet I was thoroughly taken aback by one of Jobs' "excesses," as chronicled by Fortune. A subordinate at Next Computer was showing Jobs shades of green for the company's logo. More precisely, she produced some 37 shades of green before coming upon one that pleased the master. "Oh, come on," the minion recalled thinking, "green is green."

Oh, no, it isn't!

Almost every step Jobs took at Apple (and Next) broke the mold; moreover, it defied industry tradition as set by the all-powerful, undisputed master of the universe (IBM). To say Jobs was fighting an uphill battle is to suggest that Charles Lindbergh's historic flight across the Atlantic was "challenging." Jobs was reviled and ridiculed. Yet he reinvented the computer world, in a way that makes Bill Gates' more recent contributions at Microsoft seem meager by comparison.

How did Jobs do it? By worrying about which shade of green was "right." He triumphed with the Apple II. Then the Macintosh. It was precisely his stratospheric standards ("insanely great" was a common Jobsism in days past) that allowed him and his enormously spirited teams to push past the existing frontier time and time again.

No, sir. Green is not green. Not if you're reinventing the planet. Which is not to applaud his tirades. But it is to suggest that for every disaffected Apple or Next employee burned by Jobs, there are probably 10 who by age 28 achieved Neil Armstrong-like lifetime highs at his side. Perhaps the bitterness of some stems from the subliminal realization they'll never soar so high again. It's a nightmare for a 28-year-old software designer, just as it is for 30-year-old Michael Jordan.

My two best bosses were my two toughest bosses. Neither was a screamer, although one came reasonably close. Both practiced psychological terrorism-though neither knew he was doing so. Both set mercilessly high standards for themselves. And neither believed in barriers to achievement, including acts of God (which were seen simply as opportunities to demonstrate one's mettle as never before). Both sent me home screaming. I recall literally a year of just about non-stop headaches in one case.

It doesn't jibe with the perfectly balanced life. But I'll tell you, I learned more, faster, from these two than ever before or since.

The perfect boss is, of course, aware of individual differences and knows exactly how far to push each individual to "attain maximum performance," or some such ideal.

Except I very much doubt bosses like that exist. Those with shockingly high standards undoubtedly cause casualties among their followers. Yet without these outrageous pioneers, we wouldn't get anywhere.

Am I callous? Yes and no. To countenance, under any circumstances, the infliction of pain is callous. But to fail to understand that no epic bridge or dam has ever been built, or fighter aircraft tested, without casualties is to fail to comprehend the real world of high-performance anything.

Fortune quotes experts who say these executive thugs suffer from low self-awareness. I'm sure that's true, and perhaps the toughies would benefit from counseling by a trusted peer (unlikely) or elder (slightly more likely) who would clue them in on the havoc they've left in their wake.

But, let's face it. If these chiefs were thoroughly self-aware they would probably not realize how insane (literally) their towering quests are. And the world would be a poorer place for it.’

Positive Leadership: On Excellence

Positive Leadership: Our Approach to High Performance

Positive Leadership: Our Approach to High Performance

Positive Leadership: The Difference Between Management and Leadership

Managers work to get their employees to do what they did yesterday, but a little faster and a little cheaper.

Leaders, on the other hand, know where they'd like to go, but understand that they can't get there without their tribe, without giving those they lead the tools to make something happen.

Managers want authority. Leaders take responsibility.

We need both. But we have to be careful not to confuse them. And it helps to remember that leaders are scarce and thus more valuable.

Positive Leadership: The Difference Between Management and Leadership

Positive Leadership: Bridgewater Associates' Pursuit of Truth and Excellence

In both 2010 and 2011, Bridgewater Associates (www.bwater.com) ranked as the largest and best performing hedge fund manager in the world. 

Bridgewater’s unique results are a product of its unique culture. Truth and excellence are valued above all else. 

As Bridgewater founder, Ray Dalio says: 

'In order to be excellent we need to know what’s true, especially those things that we would rather not be true, so that we can decide how best to deal with them. We want logic and reason to be the basis for making decisions. It is through this striving to be excellent by being radically truthful and transparent that we build meaningful work and meaningful relationships.

At Bridgewater, our overriding objective is excellence, or more precisely, constant improvement. We believe that producing excellence requires approaching both work and people in a principled way. Above all else, we want to find out what is true and figure out how best to deal with it. We value independent thinking and innovation, recognizing that independent thinking generates disagreement and innovation requires making mistakes.

To foster this thinking and innovation, we maintain an environment of radical openness, even though that honesty can be difficult and uncomfortable. At Bridgewater each individual has the right and the obligation to ensure that what they do and what we do collectively in pursuit of excellence makes sense to them. Everyone is encouraged to be both assertive and open-minded in order to build their understanding and discover their best path. The types of disagreements and mistakes that are typically discouraged elsewhere are expected at Bridgewater because they are the fuel for the learning that helps us maximize the utilization of our potential. It is through this unique culture that we have produced the meaningful work and meaningful relationships that those who work here and our clients have come to expect.'

Underpinning the Bridgewater philosphy are Ray Dalio's Principles, which the organisation uses, debates and changes to agree on how individuals should be with each other in their collective pursuit of excellence.

Positive Leadership: Bridgewater Associates' Pursuit of Truth and Excellence

Positive Leadership: Leading in a VUCA World

How do you lead successfully in a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous), disruptive, even chaotic world?

In their new book Great by Choice, Jim Collins and Morten Hansen pondered that question. To get some empirically derived answers, they studied leaders of companies that grew to become great in highly uncertain, even chaotic, industries. They include the biotech, semiconductor, personal computer, and airline industries. Over the years, the CEOs of these companies faced massive technology disruptions, deep industry recessions, sudden collapses in demand, price wars, oil shocks — you name it. But even so, they led their companies to great long-term financial performance. Their experience can guide leaders who now must lead in today's disruptive world.

Some of these leaders have become legends, such as Andy Grove of Intel and Herb Kelleher of Southwest Airlines. Others remain fairly unknown outside their industry, such as John Brown of Stryker and George Rathmann of Amgen. What then were the leadership characteristics that separated the winning leaders from their industry peers?

Surprisingly, they were not more visionary (they did not stand out for their ability to "see" the future), and they were generally not more charismatic (yes, a few were, like Herb Kelleher, but not all, and so were some industry peers).

Instead, the researchers found three other characteristics:

Productive Paranoia. Bill Gates was hyper-vigilant about what could hit and damage Microsoft. "Fear should guide you," he said in 1994. "I consider failure on a regular basis." Herb Kelleher predicted eleven of the last three recessions. Andy Grove ran around "looking for the black cloud in the silver lining." Productive paranoia is the ability to be hyper-vigilant about potentially bad events that can hit your company and then turn that fear into preparation and clearheaded action. You can't sit around being fearful; you must act, like Herb Kelleher, who insisted on cutting costs and running lean operations in good times, so that they would be prepared for the next storm, imagined or real.

Empirical Creativity. Well, just staying alive does not produce greatness. You must also create. So we should expect these leaders to be highly creative — to create new, wonderful products. Yes, but here's the rub. The leaders of the average industry peers also displayed lots of creativity. The researchers found that the differentiating leadership principle was a certain approach to creativity, what we call empirical creativity — the ability to empirically validate your creative instincts. This means using direct observation, conducting practical experiments, and engaging directly with evidence, rather than relying on opinion, whim, and analysis alone. When Peter Lewis of Progressive, the car insurance company, had the idea of expanding into the safe-driver market, he did not move in one big swoop. Rather, he started with trials in Texas and Florida, then added more experiments in other states, and finally, three years later, when the concept was validated, he bet big on the new business. His idea was rooted in empiricism, not analysis alone.

Fanatic Discipline. Discipline can mean many things — working hard, following rules, being obedient, and so on. However, the researchers mean something else: The best-performing leaders in the study exhibited discipline as consistency of action — consistency with values, long-term goals, and performance standards; consistency of method; and consistency over time. It involves rejecting conventional wisdom, hype, and the madness of crowds — essentially being a nonconformist. When John Brown of Stryker set the long-term goal of 20% annual net income growth, year in and year out (he hit it in more than 90% during 21 years), he was so committed to this quest that it could only be described as, well, fanatical. Markets down? Competition severe? Recession? Market hype? He did not care. He built a system of fanatic discipline to achieve the quest, no matter what. He was highly disciplined by showing consistency between his words (the goal) and his behaviours (everything he did to make it happen).

You need all three leadership skills in an uncertain world: Fanatic discipline keeps you on track; empirical creativity keeps you vibrant; and productive paranoia keeps you alive.

When we speak to leaders, we find it helpful to ask: When you consider these three leadership skills, which do you perceive as your weakest one, and how can you turn that into a strength?

Positive Leadership: Leading in a VUCA World

Positive Leadership: What makes a Great Leader?

What makes a great leader?  Here are three alternatives to consider:

Someone who has managed to overcome any weaknesses that she may have had.

Someone who is really well rounded and good at a large number of things.

Someone who is exceptionally good at a relatively small number of leadership competencies.

While there are good things to say about each of the alternatives above, the research is quite clear.  The last choice is the hands-down winner. Extraordinary leaders are those who possess and regularly utilise three or more powerful strengths.  There are those who have believed that there are other ways to get there. 

However, the data suggests that the first two items above simply do not work: 

Not possessing any failings or faults. 

(This is a bit complicated, because it is also true that extraordinary leaders most certainly have some failings and flat sides, but they don’t possess fatal flaws.)  You just can’t be awful at some leadership competency and still succeed in being a highly effective leader.

We all know horror stories about bad bosses.  These range from the boss who screams, shouts, berates and throws things across the room; to bosses who will never make a decision or take responsibility for their actions.  A currently popular TV show, The Office, painfully spoofs a bad boss who totally lacks self-awareness and constantly engages in highly inappropriate interactions with his subordinates. 

But let’s assume for a moment that we could eradicate these really bad behaviours. Would that create an inspiring, highly motivating leader?  The answer is obviously “No”.  Simply removing inappropriate behaviour brings you to ground zero.

Being exceedingly well rounded and good at the great majority of leadership competencies.

(Yes, that’s also better than not being good at a wide variety of leadership competencies.  But that does not cut it either.)

In most larger organisations that have existed for a decade or more, there is some very pleasant, generally well-liked manager who is also known as “good old ______.” (You can fill in the name.)  He doesn’t initiate new projects.  Or his group is performing adequately, but not brilliantly.  Nothing stands out about this individual, nor the performance of the group they lead.

We trust that this will be an encouraging message to most readers.

Why?

Because it says that a person doesn’t need to be outstanding at a wide range of competencies in order to be highly effective in a leadership role.

Instead, being really effective at a small number of competencies is all that is required.  Better yet, it doesn’t seem to make much difference which ones these are.  A wide variety of combinations work.  If someone is at the 90th percentile at displaying high integrity and honesty, and along with that also is at the 90th percentile at taking initiative, then 91% of the time that person will be in the top 10% of all leaders in their organisation.  The same thing is true for someone who communicates powerfully and prolifically and also sets stretch goals with the team that they manage, only their odds increase to 94% of the time. 

Positive Leadership: What makes a Great Leader?

Positive Leadership: The Values of Your Business

Businesses communicate a lot of things. Many love to boast when their revenues soar, or publicise the strategic restructuring of their organisational response committees (whatever that means). But often missing from a firm's communications is something absolutely fundamental to its operations: its values.

If a company doesn't take the time and effort to communicate its values in a meaningful way, then it's like the old tree-falling-in-the-forest cliché: It makes a big splash, but no one is around to appreciate its impact.

Recent high-profile scandals and crises have made it clear that many businesses do not properly or openly communicate their values. That has direct and indirect effects on the economy, which is made all the worse by rising fears of a double-dip recession and angst over the state of global markets.

Just look at how The News of the World phone-hacking scandal has exposed News Corp. to accusations over the company's values and the efficacy of its leadership. Had the company more openly communicated what it stands for and the moral compass its employees follow, it likely would not have been vilified so thoroughly in the press. Despite numerous protestations from Rupert Murdoch and his top lieutenants that the company's values align perfectly with the public's best interests, the damage has been done. The public is left questioning what, if anything, does this company stand for?

Even NewsCorp. purports to have values, but like many other companies it fails to effectively communicate them to the outside world. Having strong corporate values is admirable, but values without proactive employee communication of their importance might as well not exist. A firm might host a company-wide meeting to reaffirm the employee-engagement programme or to deliver the annual report, but how often have you seen that effort start with a bang and quickly fizzle out as people move on with their day-to-day tasks? Employee communications has never been a more important component of a CEO's management toolbox, and we must educate our employees on how to effectively communicate values and make them resonate.

What else can businesses do to better communicate their values? A few key ideas to keep in mind:

Ask employees what is important to them. Seek their input on how well the company's work, and in turn, its employees, reflect their value system. Remember that generalised concepts — even oft-used words found in mission statements like "integrity" and "commitment" — have different meanings to people from different cultures and backgrounds.

Establish core values across the company, not just within management. If management sets values, who would own them? You need buy-in from employees; they have to feel a certain ownership over value creation.

Develop a values communications plan. Employee communications has to be at the forefront of your value-setting agenda; too often, executives fail to proactively seek employee input and buy-in before values are put in place. This leads to antipathy and resentment among those employees who don't feel a company's values align with their personal and professional aspirations.

Live your values. Embrace the corporate values and be mindful of them in every decision you make — both in good and bad times. Never forget that actions speak louder than words.

Few companies get every component of "the business of values" just right. Value setting is a tough business, often fraught with multiple challenges and divergent agendas. But once those values are set, right or wrong, every CEO would be wise to communicate them and live them as though his business depends on it. Because it just might.

Now is the time to take the whole business of values, and the values of our businesses, a lot more seriously.

Positive Leadership: The Values of Your Business

Positive Leadership: The Power of Visualisation

Data is not useful until it becomes information, and that's because data is hard for human beings to digest.

This is even more true if its news that contradicts what we've already decided to believe. Can you imagine the incredible mind shift that Mercator's map of the world caused in the people who saw it? One day you believed something, and then a few minutes later, something else.

We repeatedly underestimate how important a story is to help us make sense of the world.

Jess Bachman wants to help you turn the data about the US budget (the largest measured expenditure in the history of mankind) into information that actually changes the way you think.

It is not possible to spend less than ten minutes looking at this, and more probably, you'll be engaged for much longer. And it's definitely not possible to walk away from it unchanged. That's a lot to ask for a single sheet of paper, but that's the power of visualising data and turning it into information.

Positive Leadership: The Power of Visualisation

Positive Leadership: Thinking Differently

Steve Jobs narrated the first Think different commercial "Here's to the Crazy Ones". It never aired. Richard Dreyfuss did the voiceover for the original spot that aired. This one is much better!

Positive Leadership: Thinking Differently