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How to Employ Leadership Fundamentals… or Falter

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StrategyDriven Management and Leadership ArticleReddit, the on-line bulletin board system that posts entertainment, social networking and news content, gained a high profile, attracted Rock Star investors and a $500 million valuation. Then, it executed several strategic moves with seemingly little communication and proceeded to churn its executive ranks through a revolving door.

In the process, Reddit upset nearly everyone; investors, employees and its fanatical community of users alike. Those users architected, for all intents and purposes, a coup de ‘tat that resulted in Interim CEO Ellen Pao’s departure.

There has been no shortage of prognosticators who have offered their own diagnosis and cure on this self-policed and user-directed site. The sacred cow has been Reddit’s free speech and privacy policies. How can the organization create guidelines for socially responsible submissions when some negative offshoots of free speech-extremism, sexism, hate mongering and vigilantism—threaten Reddit’s integrity?

While addressing the sacred cow, the company failed miserably to articulate its strategy and gain support for its direction. Confusion reigned. There appeared to be a thrash-about in several simultaneous directions. If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.

There’s been plenty of unsolicited advice on what to do. Here’s a piece of advice about how to do it. Advance your organization while leading from the front. Employ some leadership fundamentals. Your team and your user community will follow you up the hill, help you capture the enemy flag and celebrate victory with you. I look forward to the party.

First, to hatch a credible plan that has a daylight of a chance to succeed, gain the support of the people who must execute that plan. Collaborate with your people AND your user community. Team meetings, user advisory boards and a consensus approach might take a little time, but a plan concocted in a closet and then jammed down everyone’s throat didn’t work, did it? Share the vision and create a collective energy. You can’t do it alone.

Second, to kick off that game plan, a team must be completely aligned. With that collaborative effort behind you to hatch the plan, you’ve got a much better chance to get everyone on the boat rowing in the same direction. Get your team behind a few tangible goals. Common goals make for an aligned team. An aligned team makes for a focused, bold, impassioned execution.

Third, as you execute that plan, communicate like crazy. Heck, over-communicate. The world of social media is transparent. Make highly visible what you’re trying to accomplish and publicize your score card, what’s working and where you need help. Then pass the credit to those who made the contributions.

Reddit is now in the hands of CEO and returning co-founder Steve Huffman. Here’s the deal, Steve. You’re in a jam. You need to practice some leadership fundamentals. They’ll get you out of that jam. They might keep you out of a future jam to boot.

About the Author

Peter J. BoniPeter J. Boni is Managing Principal at Kedgeway, Inc and author of ALL HANDS ON DECK: Navigating Your Team Through Crises, Getting Your Organization Unstuck and Emerging Victorious (Career Press, 2015).

Three Millennial Mindsets to Embrace and Encourage

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What drives leadership performance? Is it having the right principles or the right mindset? Some may say neither do.

Principles and mindset are not discussed often as being performance indicators. Communicating a vision, hiring the right people, and designing the right systems are more often highlighted as ways leaders can ensure performance. Although each are important, mindset and principles are the starting point, and Millennials are getting this right.

Principles and mindsets, however, may get bantered about with little distinction. Both are essential yet there is a difference.

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About the Author

Jon MertzJon Mertz is one of the Top 100 Thought Leaders in Trustworthy Business and highlighted as one of the Leaders to Watch in 2015 by the American Management Association. He also is the author of Activate Leadership: Aspen Truths to Empower Millennial Leaders. Jon serves as vice president of marketing at Corepoint Health. Outside of his professional life, Jon brings together a community to inspire Millennial leaders and close the gap between two generations of leaders. Follow him on Twitter @ThinDifference or Facebook /ThinDifference

Get Better Results by Looking at Your Team Differently

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Why do you pay your team members? If you asked them, they might answer “You pay us to work.” If you ask an office-based worker what ‘work’ means to them, you’ll get a list of typical workday activities. They read and write emails. They write reports. They go to meetings and attend conference calls. Those activities that sound appropriate enough, but they don’t give a complete picture of what ‘work’ means to you.

There are two different definitions of ‘work’ in the dictionary. Your team members likely subscribe to the one that defines ‘work’ as “mental or physical activity as a means of earning income; employment.” Given you’re responsible for your team achieving its goals, you probably lean toward the other one which defines “work” as “activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result.”

The two definitions are similar in that they revolve around physical or mental activity but they differ significantly on the purpose of the work. The implication here is you must hold your team members accountable for the results they achieve – not the activities they perform. That accountability contributes to the collective results your team delivers. Activities your team members think of as “work” are the inputs that go into getting the real outcome you desire – results that lead you to achieve your goals.

You need to evaluate the amount of output you get from a team member (the results of their work) and compare that to the amount of time and energy you have to invest in them to get it. We call that second piece ‘leadership capital.’ The result of those comparisons is the Leadership Matrix (or ‘the box’ for short). Within that matrix, we define behavioral archetypes from Slackers to Rising Stars and everything in between. The real insight lies in practical advice on how to lead those folks to improve their performance. To assess that performance, you need a deep understanding of the output generated by your team members. Those are the outcomes to assess when placing team members on the Leadership Matrix.

Mike Figliuolo - Leadership Matrix

Assessing the Output of Your Team Members

The output question leaders need to focus on is “are my team members producing the results I need given all the investments – pay, equipment, supplies, my time and energy – I’m making in them?” Assess each team member’s output – results that contribute to your team goals. To conduct this assessment, you’ll evaluate five elements of team member output:

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About the Author

Mike FigliuoloMike Figliuolo is the co-author of Lead Inside the Box: How Smart Leaders Guide Their Teams to Exceptional Results and the author of One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership. He’s the managing director of thoughtLEADERS, LLC – a leadership development training firm. An Honor Graduate from West Point, he served in the U.S. Army as a combat arms officer. Before founding his own company, he was an assistant professor at Duke University, a consultant at McKinsey & Co., and an executive at Capital One and Scotts Miracle-Gro. He regularly writes about leadership on the thoughtLEADERS Blog.

What Box? How to Turn Problems into Opportunities

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Albert Einstein once said, “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.” Put another way look in the mirror the next time you have a problem. Maybe it is actually a blessing in disguise. Maybe it is a lesson you need to learn. Maybe you have something to do with it. Take ownership and use these tips to guide you in finding creative solutions when others are trapped by paranoia, resistance, drama and disempowering paradigms.

Tip #1: Ask “What if?” Use this question to open your mind and brainstorm multiple alternatives. There are more ways than one to solve a problem. Beware of getting trapped in the ‘Option A’ versus ‘Option B’ dispute. Seek options C and D. Chances are your best option might just be Option E or F – a combination of creative ideas.

Tip #2: Ask “Why?” Use this question to contemplate all of the reasons why this is an optimal solution. Keep an open mind as you explore all of the forces ‘for’ the idea. Challenge your own assumptions and suspend judgement as you play with the rationale.

Tip #3: Ask “Why Not?” This question allows us to consider the obstacles and risks that are likely to come with any solution. Specify any forces ‘against’ the idea and weigh the risks. Now consider countermeasures. What can you do to mitigate or eliminate the risks?

Tip #4: Ask “Who” can help me? Remember you may be part of the problem. Surround yourself with capable and knowledgeable people. Get the facts. Solicit feedback. Think teamwork. Collaborate. Consult with experts, directly and indirectly. Involving people from a variety of levels and functionalities, including customers, will help you challenge assumptions and think outside the box.

Tip #5: Ask “How?” Use this question to consider the practicality, cost and ease of implementation and sustainability. This is where the rubber meets the road. The world is full of good ideas but many change agents fail when it comes to successfully turning good ideas into great results. Use the ‘How’ question to uncover critical success factors necessary to develop an effective strategic plan.

Tip #6: Ask “When?” Timing will be one of your critical success factors. Remember, timing can be everything. Use this question to exercise wisdom, patience, discernment and caution when building and executing your plan. Be sure you are well prepared. Make sure you also recognize that time is money. Set aggressive goals to challenge limiting assumptions and stimulate creative thinking. Consider “What would it take to have this completed by the end of the week, or perhaps even the end of the day?”

Tip #7: Prepare for the “Yeah, buts!” Every successful entrepreneur and change agent knows that resistance is part of the transformation equation. We are always being challenged with comments like “Yeah, but this really isn’t a good time,” or “Yeah, but someone else is already doing it,” or “Yeah, but you can’t make any money doing that.” The ‘Yeah, buts’ are countless and often come from well-intentioned people very close to us – including ourselves! Be ready for this resistance by identifying potential ‘Yeah, buts’ ahead of time. Some of these may have been identified in the “Why Not?” exercise. Others may have been addressed in the ‘How’ questioning. A wise problem solver will anticipate resistance and be prepared for it. As a result, wise solutions are designed for success.

Tip #8: Consider “So What!” What difference does your idea or solution really make? Clever innovators and creative change agents recognize that solving problems ‘inside’ a box, when the box itself is the problem, is like moving chairs around on the Titanic. So what if we made small, incremental improvement. What if the competition is doing it in half the time or at half the cost? So what if we have achieved six sigma (near perfect) performance on our floppy disks or fax machines. No one wants them anymore! Remember, a paradigm shift can send everyone else back to zero.

Tip #9: Ask “Now What?” Creative thinkers recognize that we never really ‘get it right’ and we never really ‘get it done.’ Life is a continuous journey and as we evolve we uncover more and more opportunity for growth. We may achieve near perfection on a temporary product or process but resting on our laurels or becoming arrogant and resistant is a recipe for disaster. Use these tips to keep an open, contemplative mind. Learn to make change, not just manage it. There is less traffic on the leading edge.

About the Author

John MurphyJohn J. Murphy is an award-winning author, speaker, business consultant, whose most recent book is Zentrepreneur: Get Out of the Way and Lead. Drawing on a diverse collection of experiences as a corporate director, collegiate quarterback, spiritual mystic, and management coach, John has appeared on more than four hundred radio and television stations and his work has been featured in more than fifty newspapers nationwide. In 1988 he left corporate management to start his consulting company. He has now trained tens of thousands of people from dozens of countries. His clients include some of the world’s leading organizations. John lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Visit him online at www.venturemanagementconsultants.com.

How to Handle a Blitz: 4 Key Strategies for Successfully Negotiating During a Company Transition

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It happens. We rock and roll along in our career and then – wham! A blitz. The company announces a major organizational change. It could be a merger, acquisition, downsizing, rightsizing or some other sort of organizational change. As a result, the company requests you assume new, additional or high-risk responsibilities, or, potentially, work for a different company.

When a blitz occurs, employees stand stunned, and don’t always recognize or value their level of influence relative to compensation. Even when employers call a blitz, employees retain power and the ability to negotiate.

Next time a company hurtles a blitz, follow these 4 critical strategies for successfully negotiating any compensation.

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About the Author

Stacey HawleyStacey Hawley founded Credo, a compensation and talent management firm, in 2011. A recognized speaker, writer, and expert in compensation and talent management, Stacey is author of Rise to the Top: How Woman Leverage Their Professional Persona to Earn More and Rise to the Top and is a frequent contributor to Forbes, BusinessInsider.com, LearnVest, Working Mother, and The Glass Hammer. Her expertise has been cited in publications and resources such as Money magazine, MSN Careers, CareerBuilder, the Chicago Tribune, and LinkedIn.