The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs

View more presentations from Antonio Gadaleta.

The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs

Are You a Genius or a Genius Maker?

Are you a genius or a genius maker? 

We've all had experience with two dramatically different types of leaders.

The first type drains intelligence, energy, and capability from the people around them and always needs to be the smartest person in the room. These are the idea killers, the energy sappers, the diminishers of talent and commitment. On the other side of the spectrum are leaders who use their intelligence to amplify the capabilities of the people around them. When these leaders walk into a room, light bulbs go off over people's heads; ideas flow and problems get solved. These are the leaders who inspire employees to stretch themselves to deliver results that surpass expectations. These are the Multipliers. And the world needs more of them, especially now when leaders are expected to do more with less.

In this video, Liz Wiseman and Greg McKeown visit Google to discuss their book Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter. They share the research behind Multipliers and illustrate the resoundingly positive and profitable effect these Multipliers have on organisations -- how they get more done with fewer resources, develop and attract talent, and cultivate new ideas and energy to drive organisational change and innovation. They introduce the five disciplines that distinguish Multipliers from Diminishers. 

The good news is that these five disciplines are not based on innate talent; indeed they are skills and practices that everyone can learn to use, even lifelong and recalcitrant Diminishers. 

Just imagine what you could accomplish if you could harness all the energy and intelligence around you!

Are You a Genius or a Genius Maker?

Creating New Jobs

We can career-counsel people all we want about how to find jobs, but the true challenge now is how to create jobs. The private sector, and particularly the SME sector, is the ultimate engine of job creation; but even the best engine can use a jump-start.

Here is one idea:

Partnerships for job creation. While big companies have tended to be net job-shedders, they create jobs through the small and mid-sized enterprises in their supply and distributions chains. Big can power small. Imagine a national partnership in which big companies pledge to enhance the capabilities of domestic suppliers by providing mentors, investment capital, opportunities in export markets and use of offices abroad, and even insurance benefits as part of a larger pool.

Creating New Jobs

A Leader's Learning

There are three aspects of a personal learning strategy that are critical to the effective learning of eminent performers, senior executives and successful professionals:

First, the strategy must include a method for extracting insight from experience. This allows a leader to gain from the challenges life continually dishes up, including the crucible experiences that define them as leaders. 

Second, a leader’s learning strategy must be driven by a powerful aspiration that encourages growth and adaptation. 

Third, the learning strategy must be built around a concept and regimen of deliberate practice that connects learning and performance. 

Source: Thomas, R. (2008).What leaders can learn from expert performers. Leader to Leader, 2008 (50), p28-33.

A Leader's Learning

Failure is a Wee Test

'

“You have to suffer failure in this game. It dents your personal pride but it is a part of the game, part of life. But if you take a pride in what you do you will learn from it, use it as an incentive. Failure is a just a wee test. You just have to appraise it, look at it.” 

Walter Smith, Manager, Glasgow Rangers FC

Failure is a Wee Test

HP's Leadership Failure

Hewlett Packard’s Board of Directors demonstrated recently that if you violate HP’s Standards of Business Conduct (SBC) you can lose your job, even if you are the chairman and CEO. 

Mark Hurd, who had served as HP’s CEO for the last five years (and chairman for four years), resigned at the Board’s request after an investigation concluded he had engaged in inappropriate behaviour that violated HP’s SBC.

Just as leaders don’t get a free pass when they miss performance goals, there ultimately isn’t a free pass when ethical standards aren’t met. Trust is essential in sustaining business performance. Leadership without ethical behaviour is a failure of leadership.

So when Hurd wrote some time ago in the SBC’s preface that “We want to be a company known for its ethical leadership….” the problem wasn’t that the standard was too high to meet. The issue is Hurd wasn’t engaged in making real what that meant for him.

His message in the preface continued: “Let us commit together, as individuals and as a company, to build trust in everything we do by living our values and conducting business consistent with the high ethical standards embodied within our SBC.”

Tone at the top only counts when leaders use words that they believe in enough to live.  

HP's Leadership Failure

The Art of Possibility

Speaking recently on leadership and problem solving, Boston Philharmonic Orchestra conductor Benjamin Zander emphasises that everyone has options. 

"You can face problems with resignation, anger or possibility. These are all valid responses. You have a choice." Choosing possibility isn't always easy, he notes, but it will lead to excellence. It will also lead to a challenging of assumptions -- and assumptions are often roadblocks to innovation.

"Everybody wants out of the box thinking; the question is, how do you get it?" says Zander. "It's very simple. You ask a question: What assumptions am I making that I don't know I'm making?" The key to success inside an organisation, he adds, has to do with voicing these assumptions. "Every organisation, every human endeavour, has to have someone whose job it is to notice what assumptions are being made ... and [who] has permission to say so. Anybody from the bottom to the top should be able to speak about assumptions without fearing loss of any kind."

When Zander's musicians make a mistake, he teaches them not to give in to the voice of doubt or self-recrimination. Instead, he has instructed his students to say "How fascinating!" whenever they make a mistake. To Zander, this means throwing up one's arms and exclaiming "How fascinating!" at top volume. His point: Every setback is an opportunity to learn. Every setback represents a world of possibility. "Education is not so much about the transference of information as the opening up of new categories," Zander notes. "When you are educated in that sense, you are actually walking in a different world. The question becomes, 'What are you going to do now?'".

For more, see: http://mbvt.knowledgeatwharton.com/index.cfm?fa=viewArticle&ID=2537

The Art of Possibility

The Mentor Leader

Tony Dungy retired as coach of the Indianapolis Colts just two seasons after winning the Super Bowl. Since then, he's worked as an NFL analyst, a motivational speaker — and now, as a writer. His new book, The Mentor Leader: Secrets to Building People & Teams That Win Consistently is about the importance of mentoring.

In his book, Dungy cites former Pittsburgh Steelers coach Chuck Noll as someone who taught him a lot. Dungy played briefly for the Steelers, and then coached under him until Noll's retirement.

"He knew how he could help people," Dungy says. "He was a teacher, he was a guy that was very good at selecting people, getting them to fit in — he wasn't the guy that was going to sit there and motivate you intrinsically. That wasn't what he was best at. So he hired people that were good at that."

Noll even hired other, more motivational speakers to come in and address his team before games.

"That's part of being a good leader as well," Dungy says. "Recognising your strengths and making sure you utilise them, but also recognising your weaknesses and coming up with ways to overcome that."

When he retired from football, Dungy cited the all-consuming nature of being a head coach as one of the reasons for his departure.

For excerpts from the book, please go to: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129000617

The Mentor Leader

'Presence' Determines Leader Success

The personal quality of presence is one of the most important factors contributing to a leader's successful performance.

A leader's presence can be classified by three categories: weak, strong negative and strong positive. Of the three, leaders with a strong positive presence are the ones who have the greatest positive impact in building a motivated, high-performing workforce.

What indicators demonstrate a strong, positive leadership presence?  If the following conditions exist, you have a strong positive presence as a leader:

*Your organisation reflects the core values important to you personally.

*Organisational members implicitly trust you.

*Members admire and respect you for who you are (what you stand for) as much or more than what you are (your title or position).

*Your drive and passion inspires exceptional performance throughout the organisation.

*Members are aligned and committed to standards, goals, and the direction you have set for your organisation.

Executives who score low on these factors are likely to experience much difficulty in leading their organisations, especially during tough economic conditions. 

'Presence' Determines Leader Success

'Presence' is a Key Component of Leadership

One of the most important, yet often overlooked leadership competencies is one that many call ‘leadership presence’.

This looks different from leader to leader because everyone brings unique experiences and sense of self to the role.

However, regardless of individual influences, extraordinary leaders share four common practices that add up to an effective and commanding presence. They are clear on their purpose, they act authentically, they elicit respect and they act with confidence.

Effective leaders have a clear sense of purpose that also aligns with the organisational mission. This serves as their compass when tempted to deviate from the mission and purpose in order to please others. They also accept that in the process of holding to their purpose, they will have to make tough choices that can result in losses and casualties.

Authenticity has two parts: staying true to who you are as you lead others, and bringing forth those parts of yourself that influence others to follow you. Environmental forces will test your ability to stay true to who you are. Authenticity also involves encouraging others to follow you by playing up the parts of yourself they can most relate to and that meet the needs of a situation. In other words, you want to manage which face you put forward in a given group of people. This is not about acting in a fake way, but instead knowing about which parts of yourself serve you best and which to play down at any given time.

Leadership presence is magnified when respect is earned from colleagues at every level. When people don't take you seriously, they are not likely to follow your lead. Those with leadership presence have mastered the ability to deliver their message in a way that is in sync with their intentions and that ultimately elicits respect. Gathering feedback from those around you can be a great way to identify how you are perceived and help you determine how to best adjust your style so that you generate the respect and buy-in that great leaders are able to inspire.

Finally, individuals who possess real leadership presence portray an air of confidence. They manage any self-doubt behind the scenes so they can promote a face of certainty to others. If your confidence is lagging, consider how this ambiguity might affect people's comfort in following you. Finding a trusted confidant can provide you with an opportunity to sort through your concerns and avoid de-motivating the people you hope to lead.

By managing your leadership presence and making and implementing intentional choices about your style, you can keep others invested in your mission and inspire them to be engaged and productive contributors.

Leadership presence can be the foundation upon which leadership strategy and business strategy come closer together over time, creating leaders who are agile strategists, thinkers and implementers.

'Presence' is a Key Component of Leadership

Executive 'Presence'

Toss a stone into a pond and watch what happens. The ripples move out from the centre growing larger as they swell before receding into the glassy surface of the water. There's something familiar and predictable about this pattern in nature. But how does it apply to corporate leadership?

If you are in a position of authority, influence or leadership those closest to you have the clearest sense of the motivations behind your actions and words. Beyond this inner circle, employees in your organisation interpret your words or actions without knowledge of your motivations, and therefore, without proper context. Here lies the greatest area of risk in communications.

How then can you influence the way you are perceived beyond your inner circle?

Executive presence. You know it when you see it. That elusive "it" quality shared by great leaders throughout history. The way they walk onto a stage as though they belong there; or into a room as if everyone is a friend. They are polished, positive, direct, professional and authentic. They look you in the eye, and they seem to understand. Not only do they come off as strong, confident and in control, they are wonderful to be around! When you're with a leader who's got "it", YOU feel strong, confident and more in control…inspired, really.

What leaders with great executive presence understand that we can all learn from is the concept of "the ripple effect". How a common sum of qualities and competencies that create this "presence" can impact hundreds if not thousands of people in your organisation…even if you never personally interact with them.

No one is born with it. Every leader can adopt the common attributes of great executive presence. Every leader can influence the way they are perceived throughout their organisation.

It's a simple as 7 key elements:

Substance - Whether in verbal or written communication, make sure your message and language are clear, concise, interesting, informative and intelligent.

Personal Style - Your wardrobe and grooming speaks volumes about your leadership presence. Make sure you dress in a polished, appropriate manner and set the standard for your organisation.

Physical Presence - If you've ever received bad news from someone who is smiling, you know how important body language and facial expressions are to clear communications. Align your non-verbal and verbal messages, and be sure to demonstrate energy, vitality, confidence and ease.

Vocal Skill - Like body language, the way you use your voice will dramatically impact interpretation of your meaning. Control the way others receive your message through tone, pace, volume and inflection. Maintain a clear, pleasant, expressive and confident tone.

Manners/Etiquette - Have you ever noticed how great leaders seem to demonstrate elegance, finesse and ease regardless of the challenges they deal with? They understand the rules of business etiquette, and they respect those rules. They are gracious, grateful, generous and thoughtful.

Listen, listen and listen more - Be receptive to new information, listen attentively and make yourself available. Encourage expression by engaging when others speak and listening without judgment.

Work Environment - Consider the impact of your own personal space - if you're suit is custom tailored, your car is a fine European model, but your desk is a cluttered mess, what will be remembered most? Your building, office and desk should be clean, organised, pleasant and inviting, reflecting your professionalism.

Executive 'Presence'

Flow (or 'Being in the Zone')

Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi asks, “What makes a life worth living?” Noting that money cannot make us happy, he looks to those who find pleasure and lasting satisfaction in activities that bring about a state of “flow.” Flow is an oft cited concept in organisational literature today. This video gives a great introduction to the concept: 

Flow (or 'Being in the Zone')

How to Avoid Mistakes in Managing Traumatic Change

Turbulent times put leaders to the test. How people handle unwelcome surprises and unexpected blows to the best-laid plans can exacerbate a run of bad luck — or turn things in their favour. Traumatic change is hard enough without adding insult to injury. When crises occur, leaders need to know how to avoid the traps that make it harder to recover. 

Here are 13 common mistakes and some guidelines for avoiding them.

1. Pressure to act quickly undermines values and culture. Leaders take drastic steps quickly with no time to explore alternatives. Values about participation, involvement, or concern for people disappear. Cynicism grows.

Solution: Avoid the temptation to announce instant decisions. Find issues that can benefit from employee input and assign teams to tackle them.

2. Management exercises too much control. In crises, decisions get pushed to the top. Because top managers are rethinking everything, people below go passive and wait to be told what to do. Initiative declines; innovation goes on hold.

Solution: Establish short-term tasks that empower employees to seek quick wins, giving them a feeling of control over results.

3. Urgent tasks divert leaders' attention from the mood of the organisation. Managers are swamped with meetings and decisions. No one takes responsibility for assessing the impact on employees' motivation and performance.

Solution: Appoint a team of natural leaders to monitor the culture, take the pulse of employees, and coach managers on an effective process.

4. Communication is haphazard, erratic and uneven. Things change quickly, leaders are distracted, and it's not clear who has accurate information. Potentially destructive rumours take on a life of their own. Time is wasted.

Solution: Develop an interactive communications site to reach everyone with the same information in a timely fashion. Keep it going after the worst of the crisis is over.

5. Uncertainty creates anxiety. Executives don't like to say "I don't know," so they wait until they have definitive answers before they talk to their people. But people can't commit to positive actions while mired in anxiety.

Solution: Establish certainty of process when there can't be certainty about decisions. Create a calendar of briefings so that people know when they'll know. If there are no answers yet, say so.

6. Employees hear it from the media first. Aggressive journalists dig for information, and items can run in the media before employees hear about them — e.g., workers who heard that their plant was closing on the radio while driving to work. Middle managers look dumb and uninformed. Employees feel insulted and left out.

Solution: Keep the press out. Develop networks of employee-leaders to connect an information chain.

7. There is no outlet for emotions. Anger and grief mount with no way to express or deal with these emotions. People might start acting in strange ways, undermining teamwork.

Solution: Create facilitated sessions for venting. Teach managers about dealing with trauma and ensure that they acknowledge grief and anxiety.

8. Key stakeholders are neglected. Busy internally, leaders fail to engage other key constituencies. Customers, dealers, suppliers, government officials hear only the media's and competitors' slants. They get nervous and withhold support.

Solution: Manage relationships. Identify all groups that need to be communicated with regularly and devise a plan for reaching each.

9. It seems easier to cut than redeploy. Reducing budgets or people in equal proportion everywhere seems easier than taking time to reassign people or reallocate resources. Inevitably, strong performers are lost when they could have served elsewhere — including in sales roles.

Solution: Establish a pool of strong performers from areas with cutbacks. They might be able to help the business in another way — or be called back for special assignments such as supporting the transition.

10. Casualties dominate attention. Sometimes leaders want to do the humane thing by offering help to people who are cut, while neglecting the "keepers" on whom the future depends. Some of the keepers don't know that they are valued and decide to leave.

Solution: Meet individually with leaders of the future and show appreciation. Offer recognition for extra problem-solving efforts during the crisis period.

11. Changes are expedient, not strategic. Managers often restructure by removing the weakest or newest people, without regard to business needs. The unit does what it has always done but with fewer people. The opportunity for change is lost.

Solution: Identify a team and process to re-examine mission and priorities, to redirect activities toward more productive future uses.

12. Leaders lose credibility. The shock of crisis, lurches in business strategy, and performance shortfalls make top leaders' words less credible. Why believe any new strategy now? Motivation drops.

Solution: Make short-term, tangible, doable promises, and keep them.

13. Gloom and doom fill the air. Everyone is preoccupied with the negative current situation. They feel guilt about the people who are being let go. Morale sinks, and it is hard to find the energy to be creative or productive.

Solution: Show that there is a future beyond the crisis. Repeat a credible positive vision. Emphasise the steps being taken to avoid reoccurrence of the present crisis — how we're going to change so that this won't happen again.

Leaders make their own luck. In the face of traumatic change, it is important to take the time to anticipate and avoid the 13 unlucky mistakes. Learning better acts of leadership when change is difficult will help everyone get through the crisis to find better fortunes ahead.

For more, see - http://blogs.hbr.org/kanter/2010/03/13-unlucky-mistakes-in-managing-traumatic-change-and-how-to-avoid-them.html

How to Avoid Mistakes in Managing Traumatic Change

If You Think You Can, You Can

When you think that you’ll lose, you’ve lost;

For out in the world you will find

Success begins with a man’s will –

It’s all in the state of mind.

When you think you’re outclassed, you are.

You have got to think BIG to rise;

You have to FEEL sure of yourself

Before you can win a great prize.

Life’s battle does not always go

To the stronger or faster man;

But soon or late the man who wins

Is the one who THINKS he can.

Uknown

If You Think You Can, You Can

Holidays!

As it is the summer, we thought we would share 10 of the many sound business reasons to go on holiday — in addition to the fact that you deserve it and are supposed to enjoy your life and have some fun…

1. Going on holiday shows you are competent at your job because you can manage and plan enough to free up some time in your schedule, and not leave a festering mess in your absence. Not being able to take a holiday for years shows that your work and your team are so out of control that you can’t even be gone for a week.

2. No one is impressed that you have not had a holiday. If you think your company, or your team appreciates your extra-work ethic, they don’t.

3. Your team is motivated from seeing that you support and allow people to have a life — as long as you don’t send them email every day! Set the expectation you will be generally out of touch. Arrange 1-2 check-in points if you can’t stand to let go entirely, but don’t just go somewhere else and keep working.

4. Your team gets more productive when you go away. You give them a break from worrying about all the things you throw in their way when they are trying to get their work done. After about 2 weeks they will miss you and need you again, but in the mean time their productivity will actually go up.

5. Being unavailable is an effective technique for developing people. It forces them to step up. Just be careful not to un-do everything they did in your absence just because it was different than the way you would have done it.

6. If something comes up in your work that you can’t avoid and you need to cancel your holiday, reschedule another one while you are cancelling. This will minimise resentment and disappointment, give you something to look forward to… and ensure you don’t go too long without a holiday.

7. You will be more productive at work, if you step away from it and give your back-of-mind processes a chance to chew on things while you are otherwise in a good (or at least different!) mood.

8. You will realise that some of the things that you thought were important before your holiday don’t actually need to get done after all. When you step away, the most strategic things re-assert themselves and all the clutter drops several notches in volume.

9. Your company prefers people who enjoy their life because they have more positive energy to bring to their work.

10. You need a break whether you know it or not!

Holidays!

Condoleezza Rice Duets With Aretha

Former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice joined Aretha Franklin, for a rare music performance in Philadelphia earlier this week to raise money for charity:

Condoleezza Rice Duets With Aretha

Recovering from Adversity

When adversity strikes, whether it be loss of your job, an illness, a natural disaster or when you take a big hit that really knocks you off your feet for a while, how fast you get up again depends on a number of things such as: 

- How good your support network is.
- How solid your self-esteem is.
- The extent to which you believe that you can control your own destiny.
- Your experiences of overcoming adversity in the past.

If you want to shorten the time it takes to get back on your feet, try this:

- Ask yourself how it will look when you no longer have your
current problems.
- Spend time visualising yourself in that picture and imagining
how you'll feel.
- Do it over and over, day after day, week after week.
- List your strengths and past accomplishments and add to
that list on a daily basis.

At the same time:

- Set and prioritise some immediate, short-term goals to
improve your situation.
- Write a detailed plan of action for the top three, including
day and time.

Once you've accomplished a few short-term goals, you may feel ready to do some long-term visioning and goal-setting. 

Finally - and this is important - no matter how much you've lost, take time to help someone else who is struggling. Even the worst adversity can be used to learn and grow. 

Recovering from Adversity

3 Steps to Positive Leadership

In 2005, Jerry Krueger and Emily Killham shared the results of Gallup research that showed managers play a crucial role in employee well-being and engagement—but the research didn’t study what managers specifically did to elicit positive responses.

That’s why Margaret Greenberg, president of The Greenberg Group, and Dana Arakawa, a programme associate at the John Templeton Foundation, put the theory of positive leadership to the test. They wanted to know if managers who apply positive leadership practices have teams with higher project performance and employee engagement.

As it turns out, positive managers practice three leadership behaviours:

1. Use a strengths-based approach.
2. Provide frequent recognition and encouragement.
3. Maintain a positive perspective when difficulties arise.

None is an innate behaviour, but all can be learned.

A Strengths-Based Approach

There’s a reason why managers’ focus on strengths and weaknesses is so important. Most organisations are obsessed with fixing weaknesses. They conduct performance reviews, 360-degree assessments and the like to evaluate how well employees and managers are measuring up to predefined goals and competencies. Managers are instructed to look at an employee’s assessed gap and coach for greater performance in areas of weakness. But such assessments usually pay only cursory attention to an employee’s strengths. Performance reviews and subsequent remedial programs focus almost exclusively on weaknesses.

Focus on What Works

Too many managers assume that employees need to be good at many things, rather than excellent in the key areas. Recent studies have firmly established that focusing on what works, followed by a programme to scale it to greater levels, is a more practical and efficient approach to developing people and their performance.

Managers who take a strengths-based approach help employees identify strengths and align their talents with their work. These managers don’t ignore employee weaknesses, but fixing them isn’t their primary focus.

Greenberg and Arakawa found that managers who focused on strengths enjoyed superior team performance, as opposed to managers who focused on weaknesses.

The Problem-Seeking Mindset

It’s not enough to wait for performance reviews and project completion to deliver feedback. Praise must be frequent, ongoing and specific to current behaviours—not vague or general.

Sadly, we’re predisposed to look for the negative: in ourselves, in others and for external events. We rarely scan our environment and ask:

• “What’s working right now… and how can we do more of it?”
• Instead, we look around and ask: “What’s broken—and how can we fix it?”

The problem-seeking mindset is one of the brain’s shortcomings, while also serving as a protective device to spare us from danger and making mistakes.

In Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard, Dan and Chip Heath write about “finding the bright spots” in our work and lives. After extensive research, the two business school professors have documented how we’re wired to focus on bad over good.

It’s no wonder performance reviews and feedback are usually aimed at what’s not working. Yet, some successful individuals can override this brain tendency and focus on the positive, at least enough to create successful relationships both at work and home.

John Gottman, a psychologist who studies marital conversations, finds that couples who sustain long-term marriages use language that reflects five times more positive statements than negative ones. In fact, he calls this “the magic ratio” and claims it will accurately predict if a marriage will last. He urges managers to use a ratio of 5:1 positive statements in conversations with employees.

When Things Go Wrong

Managing long-term, multimillion-dollar projects that involve dozens of people and several workgroups is a complex challenge, and things are bound to go wrong. How managers respond to problems has a direct and measurable impact on both the employees and the project.

Researchers Greenberg and Arakawa asked employees:

• “When a problem crops up on my project, is my project manager able to help me come up with solutions?”
• “What steps does your project manager take when such a problem arises?”

Here’s what they found:

• Managers who maintain a positive perspective don’t turn setbacks into catastrophes.
• They don’t fly off the handle; they control their emotions.
• They recognise what’s within their sphere of influence (and what’s not).
• They see and discuss the problem as an opportunity.
• They provide a solution-oriented perspective

Greenberg and Arakawa also discovered that managers who maintained a positive perspective when things went awry experienced greater project performance. Managers who scored in the top quartile for positive perspective (as reported by their employees, not self-report) had significantly higher project performance than those in the bottom quartile.

Reflect on how you as a manager and leader can implement positive leadership by practicing these behaviours:

1.      Focus on and work with people’s strengths.

2.      Improve the frequency with which you give praise and recognition.

3.      Respond with a positive, solutions-orientation when the going gets rough.

3 Steps to Positive Leadership

Gary Player's 10 Commandments

Gary Player is a legend in his own time. The most successful international golfer of all time, Player has achieved the kind of worldwide acclaim reserved for only a handful of sporting greats. He is, quite simply, world class. Gary Player is renowned as much for his dedication to the principles of excellence as he is for his golfing accomplishments. He is recognised worldwide as an uncompromising perfectionist who settles for nothing but the best. His impeccable set of values, stringent regimen of health and fitness, and insistence on quality, have earned him admiration the world over.

Gary has lived his life based on the following commandments, enabling him to realise success achieved by very few:

1. Change is the price of survival.
2. Everything in business is negotiable, except quality.
3. A promise made is a debt incurred.
4. For all we take in life we must pay.
5. Persistence and common sense are more important than intelligence.
6. The fox fears not the man who boasts by night but the man who rises early in the morning.
7. Accept the advice of the man who loves you, though you like it not at present.
8. Trust instinct to the end, though you cannot render any reason.
9. The heights of great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight, but that while their companions slept were toiling upward in the night.
10. There is no substitute for personal contact.

Gary Player's 10 Commandments

Are You in Denial?

Denial: Why Business Leaders Fail to Look Facts in the Face---and What to Do About It is the unconscious determination that a certain reality is too terrible to contemplate, so therefore it cannot be true. We see it everywhere, from the alcoholic who swears he's just a social drinker to the president who declares "mission accomplished" when it isn't. In the business world, countless companies get stuck in denial while their challenges escalate into crises.

Harvard Business School professor Richard S. Tedlow tackles two essential questions in this astute diagnosis of one of the biggest problems in business : Why do sane, smart leaders often refuse to accept the facts that threaten their companies and careers? And how do we find the courage to resist denial when facing new trends, changing markets, and tough new competitors? 

Tedlow looks at numerous examples of organisations crippled by denial, including Ford in the era of the Model T and Coca-Cola with its abortive attempt to change its formula. He also explores other companies, such as Intel, Johnson & Johnson, and DuPont, that avoided catastrophe by dealing with harsh realities head-on.

Tedlow identifies the leadership skills that are essential to spotting the early signs of denial and taking the actions required to overcome it.

Are You in Denial?

Applying Leadership Lessons in a Crisis

The panellists in this Harvard Business School video reflect on important leadership lessons they have learned and how to apply these lessons in times of crisis -
Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala Chairman & CEO, Ayala Corporation;
Jamie Dimon Chairman & CEO, JPMorgan Chase & Company;
Orit Gadiesh Chairman and CEO, Bain & Company, Inc.;
G. Richard Wagoner Chairman and CEO, General Motors Corporation.

Applying Leadership Lessons in a Crisis

Thinking of Leading? Think About Winning First!

As a 34-year veteran of the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) industry, Pradeep Pant, President of Kraft Foods Asia Pacific, can say quite convincingly that he knows the key to successful leadership.

The magic lies in a “winning mindset”: a trait that can make all the difference between making profits or suffering losses under trying business conditions. Pant says that it was this “winning mindset” that helped turnaround Kraft Foods' Asia Pacific business.

Kraft Foods made the news recently when it launched a US$19.5 billion takeover of Cadbury PLC, the British sweet maker famous for its iconic purple-wrapped chocolates. This was barely three years after the US$7 billion acquisition of Group Danone’s global packaged baked-goods business. Clearly, Kraft Foods is not a humble company merely selling cheese. Rather, it is one of the largest food manufacturers around.

Today, Kraft Foods' products can be found on the shelves of supermarkets and grocery shops in 160 countries. In its stable, a line up of 11 “billion-dollar brands” like Nabisco, Oreo, Philadelphia Cream Cheese, Maxwell House, and of course, now Cadbury, as well as dozens other in the “hundred million brands” category.

Naturally, within such a sprawling business organisation, it would be impossible for every cylinder to be firing at the same speed all the time. While emerging markets are a critical engine of growth for Kraft Foods today, the Asia Pacific division was struggling with low to flat growth between 2001 and 2007. However, around 2007 onwards, three major "change" factors came together. First, there was a global reorganisation led by Kraft Foods' CEO, Irene Rosenfeld, to move decision-making closer to the local consumers and customers. Next, Kraft Foods acquired the Danone biscuit portfolio and finally, new leaders, like Pant, were brought in. Since 2008, operating profits have been growing at double digit rates – despite the recent economic downturn.

From a regional business unit with relatively sluggish top line growth, Kraft Foods Asia Pacific has since taken the mantle of the company's growth engine. The Asia Pacific business now boasts approximately 6,400 employees across 15 markets, 21 manufacturing plants in eight countries around the region, and eight research and development centres.

Pant, who took on the job in January 2008, said what drove the turnaround were: a clear strategic focus where they can win, consumer insights-based innovation, powerful integrated marketing initiative, aggressive in-market execution, and heavy investment in people.

But all these would not have worked without the willingness to get into the mindsets, “we will be leaders" and "we will win”.

To win, it is necessary to focus. In many organisations, the focus is on the core business. Focus means knowing what you want. But it is useless to know what you want if you cannot articulate it, for you will not be able to formulate a robust plan and steer your team or organisation towards your vision.

Focus also means concentrating on one task at a time. Gillette, where Pant worked his way up over 20 years to become President for Asia Pacific, is one good example. When the operations underperformed in 1999, the company came up with a recovery plan. While many other companies might have rushed to react to changes in the market, Gillette stayed the course, tackling the issues one by one. This approach became the foundation of the organisation’s successful turnaround.

In a highly competitive marketplace, companies may feel compelled to be ‘everything to every customer’, and ‘doing everything everywhere’, Pant said. But to do well, it is better to stick to a clear strategic focus. He suggests that organisations ask themselves two questions: "What do I want?" and "What do I not want?"

In order to win, certain attitudes have to be adopted. For example, to master the business environment, one must first be the master of oneself, Pant said. Start by being self-aware. Ask yourself: Who am I? What are my values? What are my weaknesses and how do I fix them? The art of self-control is important as well. “If you can’t control your weaknesses, you can’t control other things,” Pant noted. Old ingrained habits will require time to break, so try instilling discipline in small doses, he advised. For example, if you want to start a morning exercise regimen, start by waking up on time everyday for the first week, before easing into the exercise. The trick to lasting changes, he said, is to do it in small steps. 


Mastery over oneself also means being genuine and real. Many people often put on a front to impress others. However, the real self will show gradually. So, be yourself and let people see you genuinely for who you are. “Nobody, including me, can act well enough to fool people all the time,” he added.

Pant, whose turf includes a diverse mix of markets with different characteristics and cultural nuances, encourages adaptability – so as to draw ideas and thoughts from different cultures. This, in turn, helps him to run the multinational corporation better.

Another route to winning, for Pant, is to think of opportunities in times of adversity. Citing the two Chinese characters that make up the word 'crisis', or "wei ji" he noted that 'wei' represents danger, whilst 'ji' stands for opportunity. So these are two ways to look at a crisis.

During the global economic downturn last year, as most other companies cut back on spending and shelved expansion plans, Kraft Asia Pacific went the other way. It maintained its prices, its product quality and marketing spend. They saw results very quickly, further confirming that the decision to stay the course was the right one.

Next, leaders need to realise that a winning mindset will do no good if there is no one to put the ideas into actual use. Unlike fixed assets, human assets need not be depreciated, he said. In fact, if there is an asset that appreciates all the time, it is people.

Pant's advice for any company is to help every staff maximise his or her potential, and make winners out of every one of them. At Kraft Foods', it is the strong belief in people – the aggressive investment in people through development and training – that has played a key role in turning it around, he added.

Winners never achieve success by staying put within their self-imposed boundaries. They need to be innovative; they need to take risks.

Innovation and risk-taking starts with listening to the customers’ needs, said Pant. One example is consumer research on Tang, a drink that is usually drunk cold in the US, is consumed as a hot drink in China. Oreo, one of the company’s best-selling cookies, was not well received in China until the less-sweet version was launched. With this version, Oreo became the number one cookie in China. In contrast, Oreo sold in Indonesia, is sweeter. “Ultimately, consumers are the bedrock of understanding the product,” he said.

With insights from customers or targeted audiences, Pant suggests delivering solutions in ways that are unique and exciting. One example he shared was from his Gillette days, when he gave salespersons silver recognition medals not after they achieved their targets, but before they set out to do so. He pointed out that the last thing someone wants to do is to return a silver medal because they didn’t deliver what was committed. The task is to find out what makes people tick. If you do well, celebrate. “Reward yourself with a small celebration for small achievements, and a big celebration for big achievements,” said Pant. But more importantly, strike a happy balance between contributing, learning and having fun at work. After all, we spend the longest part of our waking life at work.

For more, see - http://knowledge.smu.edu.sg/article.cfm?articleid=1273

Thinking of Leading? Think About Winning First!

How (Not) to Lead in a Crisis

Tony Hayward, ex ceo of BP, must have studied management in a parallel universe, where a set of anti-rules for bad leadership are taught. Here are some of these anti-rules:

Deny and minimise problems. Drop any mention of the high-minded principles you announced at the beginning of your term, such as safety and a culture that puts people first. Sweep them under the rug as you play down the significance of the crisis. Or better yet, find someone else to blame — a supplier, a business partner, a lowly employee or two.

Emphasise your own power and importance. Keep yourself front and centre all the time. Rarely bring forward the rest of the team, nor even indicate that it's a team effort.

Make the story all about you. Talk about your heavy burdens and the costs to your life. When forced to acknowledge the true victims, pay lip service.

Never apologise, and don't even pretend to learn from your mistakes. Brush off public disapproval, and persist in the same mindless behaviour that provoked criticism in the first place.

Hang onto your job even when it's clear you should go, in order to negotiate the highest severance package, whether you deserve it or not. Don't even consider a deferred resignation to allow for smooth transition. Cling to power, and keep everyone guessing to the very end.

How (Not) to Lead in a Crisis

The Importance of Ethics and Values in Business Leadership

Don Soderquist is the founding executive of The Soderquist Centre for Leadership and Ethics and former chief operating officer of Wal-Mart.

Here are some of his insights on the importance of ethics and values in business leadership:

• Values are really the filters through which we process the decisions that we make — and it’s extremely important that we have good filters. Problems arise when not everyone has the same filters.

• If values are touted at your company but not put into practice, it’s even worse than if you hadn’t mentioned them in the first place. It is in the acting out of our values on a day-to-day basis that they become alive.

• Among the key business values are: trust, integrity and a focus on customer satisfaction. Integrity is at the top of the list.

The Importance of Ethics and Values in Business Leadership