Allison Morris created this amazing graphic that tests your multitasking skills. She sent it to me a few weeks ago. It only takes 3 minutes, so after I took it- and scored quite well, I thought- I gave it to my husband. He’s always saying he’s no good at multitasking… but he was able to keep all of the dots moving simultaneously the whole time. Kind of amazing. Try it for yourself and you’ll see what I mean.
http://open-site.org/blog/the-multitask-test/
Check out this article! http://tcbreview.com/summer-2011/hr-you-re-doing-it-wrong-the-culture-myth.html
At first read, I think, “this woman is full of sh*t.”
But then I read it again. And this time I think about companies I’ve worked for, and companies I’ve studied. I think about companies in the HR book, and companies in Harvard Business Review Case Studies. I think about the Googles, the Zappos, and the Gores. I think about the IBMs, the GMs, and the 3Ms. I think about the financial industry, the technology industry, and the consumer products industry. And I think that maybe this woman is right. Maybe different industries and different companies just attract like-minded people, who happen to share similar values, and therefore work in a way that produces adequate results. Maybe this whole “culture” thing is a myth. Maybe it’s just a made up term and concept that consultants use to charge companies money. Maybe at the end of the day, all companies need to do is treat people well, pay them fairly, and keep the leaders out of jail (which is somewhat of a challenge these days).
But then…wouldn’t that environment – one of equal pay, equal treatment, and ethical behavior – BE the culture? Couldn’t we argue that choosing to not push an “agenda” or encourage certain behaviors (laser tag, etc.) is, in fact, a company’s culture? She makes a good point that not every company needs to be a fun, creative, innovative place to work with pool tables, and beanbag chairs. Not every company has to be a Google. I agree. But not every company has the same culture as Google. Right? By her argument, however, I am left thinking that while Googlers are playing foosball in their skinny jeans, stock brokers are tightening their ties while working feverishly to land multi-million dollar accounts…and those two vastly different firms each don’t have a culture, but rather a group of people that “have individual attitudes, beliefs, and principles that sometimes, but not always, coalesce into a sentiment that helps drive revenue and profit.” Funny, because that sounds a lot like organizational culture.
Given my tuition bill, and the organizational psychologist’s focus on culture, I’m going to say I’ve invested way too much time, energy, and money into the study of organizations to acquiesce to this woman’s preposterous and somewhat ironic view of company culture (or lack there of). I’m going to go ahead and assert that every company has a culture. Every company. Some are known, some are weird, some push the envelope, and some are simple, plain, and unnoticeable. But they all have a culture.
In the end, I’m going with my gut instinct: this woman is full of sh*t.
Kristen Bakalar
OHDCC Leadership Team
We hear cries for innovation. We’ve seen attempts to create innovative environments. How many of these strategies have you seen succeed? Scott Anthony (The Little Black Book of Innovation) and others argue that innovation isn’t really the problem. Innovation tournaments, off-sites, focus-groups, and ideation sessions are great, but are they really solving the problem?
Let’s start by identifying the problem. In most companies, I highly doubt there is a shortage of ideas, and ideas are the seeds of innovation, right? The reality is that ideas exist, but those ideas get to market infrequently. Somewhere in the system between ideation and creation, the innovation falls through the cracks into the abyss of lost opportunities. Ideas get squashed. This suggests the problem is somewhere in the system. The system is part of the culture. To change culture? Well, we all know from Burke that we can’t just change culture. We need leaders to change and influence behavior. Therefore, the problem is leadership.
To increase innovation, leaders at every level (supported from the top, of course) must encourage the communication and elaboration of new ideas to help move them along the pipeline where those ideas have a chance to become reality. A few companies have this figured out (think Google and Amazon) but most are risk-averse, which discourages experimentation. We need room to fail. From failure, comes innovation. How is one expected to be innovative with leaders who promote the status quo? Stop asking for A (innovative ideas) while rewarding for B (repeating the same “safe” behaviors)! You want innovation? Step up your leadership and address the systemic issues inhibiting it. Leaders, innovation is up to you in how you take up the role.
http://blogs.hbr.org/anthony/2013/02/your_innovation_problem_is_really_a_leadership.html
Laura Fisher, OHDCC President
What’s the secret to creating a happy company, one where employees are excited to come to work?
Fast Company recently published an article around creating happiness at work, five elements which build off of Hackman & Oldham’s employee motivation dimensions: Skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy & feedback.
The interesting piece here is that task identity (understanding the final product) is replaced with what I term employee identity – meaning how the employee thinks the company views & values them as an individual, which impacts how the employee views & values the company…which impacts motivation.
Meaningfulness of the work is a key factor in motivation, especially now as work continues to bleed into life. It’s increasingly important that employees find meaning and fulfillment in their work, since their work is a significant portion of their life.
Five elements that contribute to a happy workplace
1. Happy employees don’t stay in one role for too long. The perception of improvement creates satisfaction.
Status quo = burnout. (skill variety)
2. Cultivate a culture of mindfulness and meaning. People need to feel that their work matters. (task significance)
3. People need to feel that they matter:
Shaping policy around employee’s well-being fosters a work environment where people feel purposeful, connected and valued.
(employee identity)
4. Work/life integration is about aligning people with their passions on the job and in their lives. It’s not always a ‘balance’. (autonomy)
5. Positive feedback is more impactful peer-to-peer (feedback)
Why are happy employees important?
Gallup found disengaged employees cost the American economy up to $350 billion/year in lost productivity.
It’s hard to maintain. This year, in “50 Happiest Companies”, Apple dropped from the top 10 to #42, while Pfizer climbed from #11 to #1.
Sources:
http://businessjournal.gallup.com/content/247/the-high-cost-of-disengaged-employees.aspx
http://www.fastcompany.com/3004595/secrets-americas-happiest-companies
http://www.careerbliss.com/facts-and-figures/careerbliss-50-happiest-companies-in-america-for-2013/
Anna Denton
OHDCC Leadership Board
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Bernard L. “Bernie” Daina, a former Lieutenant in the US Army and Howard University PhD, is a management psychologist based out of the Denver, Colorado area. He specializes in psychological consulting on investor, executive, and team selection and effectiveness in a wide range of industries and organizations, with special emphasis on entrepreneurial technology companies, venture capital and private equity firms.
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Investors and board members involved with the selection and evaluation of organizational leaders have asked me, “Can one have narcissistic attributes but be a positive force in the world? For example, Steve Jobs?”
In my view, this is certainly true. Such people are a positive force if they (a) have others around them to compensate for the destructive side of their strong narcissistic characteristics, which is often a chilling, thankless, and temporary job for other people, or (b) if they have only moderate narcissistic characteristics — narcissistic “attributes”. Elaboration can be helpful:
1. Dr. Sam Vaknin has written of corporate narcissism and narcissism in the boardroom. He described the pathological narcissist. With the right intelligence, experience, skills, and luck, it has been my experience that these people can rise to the top of an organization and cleverly manipulate things in order to drive success. Often, they blow up in some embarrassing way, or are discarded with luxurious packages when their antics are about to become public. Two of the signature characteristics of pathological narcissism are:
(a) An inability to truly depend on other people and the concomitant repudiation of help (or at least huge problems authentically acknowledging dependency and help), as described by psychoanalyst Dr. Arnold Modell in his 1975 article, A Narcissistic Defense Against Affects and the Illusion of Self-Sufficiency. This trait is often rooted in a longstanding unconscious defense against the helplessness and humiliation experienced because the person was used as ego-enhancing equipment by insecure parental figures during his formative developmental years. The defense is counter-dependence.
(b) As described in formal diagnostic criteria, an inability to empathize with other people, and to truly understand their points of view and show them consideration, except insofar as this may be useful in manipulating them. This trait stems partly from identification with the manipulative parents of childhood. Omnipotent encapsulated grandiosity is also an unconscious defense characteristic, in this case a defense against depression over the lack of love that was not earned through performance, such as academic performance during childhood, as described by psychoanalyst Dr. Alice Miller in her book, The Drama of the Gifted Child.
2. Because scaling a company in a wholesome and flexible way requires the leader to depend on people — to need others — and to take all the help he can get in a discriminating fashion, pathological narcissists are not good candidates for the top leadership role in early-stage companies or in more mature ones that are poised to scale. I sometimes select them, with the explicit proviso that they be replaced by another CEO, or that they be “elevated” to Executive Chairman when a new CEO is found, just in advance of the time that the company undertakes scaling vigorously. If they are left in place, there should be no illusion about the prospects for changing the person’s troublesome characteristics. Someone with power (e.g., a board member or lead investors) must always stand ready to control the person’s tendencies to become suspicious of, competitive with, and to torment or undermine other leaders who contribute to the organization’s success. The influential power figure must also remain alert to the narcissistic leader’s compulsion to exercise his grandiosity by tricking or putting-one-over on others, be they regulators, shareholders, or employees.
3. However, providing he has the right hard skills and cognitive capabilities, the moderate narcissist (or another dominant personality configuration such as a non-pathological obsessive — who is well-organized and analytical — and with narcissistic traits) can make a good candidate for leadership of an early-stage company, or of an organization in a later stage of maturity that is expected to scale. I actually look for moderate narcissism when evaluating CEO or founder/leader candidates in such companies; the presence of some narcissistic traits is, for me, a positive indicator. This is because narcissism implies a predisposition to see achievement as an all-or-none proposition. To the narcissistic person, one is either a success or a failure, and there is very little in the gray area. That person may therefore be impelled to do extraordinary things. Determined to “succeed”, pushed by his own sense of insecurity and fear of embarrassment, he will tax himself to the limit, and apply extraordinary imagination, ingenuity, and tenacity. Mediocrity is simply not acceptable! Part of what motivates him are the same factors in his early developmental history that generated the defensive structure in pathological narcissists: a stinging unconscious memory of being used by caretakers as an extension of their own egos, of having to “perform” in order to “win” love and esteem. Often, this is reinforced by the adult experience of “working for morons”. The person is jet-fired to be his own boss, to determine his own destiny, get his “walkaway money”, build a productive enterprise, and/or win recognition for outstanding achievements that ultimately sets him and his achievements beyond the ordinary, and so forth.
4. One of the differences between the pathological narcissist and the moderate narcissist is that the latter often recognizes the need to depend on others, e.g., employees, consultants, investors; he mobilizes their help (rather than manipulatively extracting it). Also, the pathological narcissist sees the choices in extreme terms, not just success or failure, but magnificence versus deplorable. His own insecurity is so profound that he actively devalues not just the performance of others, but the very people he relies on, those who do not deliver “outstanding” results. (Steve Jobs, I believe, did some of this, excoriating people contemptuously, and he needed others around him to offset his impact.)
Dr. Michael Maccoby published a celebrated HBR article about narcissistic leaders in 2000, Narcissistic Leaders — the Incredible Pros, the Inevitable Cons. He later published a book on “productive” narcissists. Maccoby is a psychoanalyst, and an anthropologist by background, not a clinician. His writings sometimes appear to be quite tolerant of the leader who is a narcissistic character, a forbearance that may not be shared by people who have worked directly for malevolent narcissists. Indeed, the prominent clinical psychoanalyst Dr. Otto Kernberg has in various publications described the psychopathic personality as an extreme case of narcissism. Not your ideal boss!
5. In sum, what we look for in top leaders should be these characteristics of moderate narcissists, some of them shared with other personality types:
– History of transcending prior limits.
– Low tolerance for mediocrity.
– Intrinsically motivated striving for something exceptional — powerful drive to excel.
– Chip on his shoulder — core insecurity impels him to prove himself — aggression channeled into achievement.
– Courage to listen, integrate critiques, and redirect, especially in face of errors.
– Tolerance for ambiguity.
But not:
– Powerful aversion to outside help.
– Inability to genuinely empathize with others.
– Extreme, value-laden polarizations of their own and others’ accomplishments.
– Problems in sharing credit with others.
How to differentially diagnose the above in everyday business practice is an altogether separate topic. Your gut instincts should not be ignored.
– Bernard L. Daina, Ph.D.
Owner, Management and Organizational Psychology
Organizational Politics matter. As Warren Bennis noted: “unless one has an enlightened view of what organizational politics is all about, one is doomed to failure.” The inner-workings of any company, whether a corporate behemoth or a small business, can be difficult to navigate. However, they must be understood as even the brightest can find themselves rendered ineffective by a lack of political savvy. Skills such as getting noticed, networking, persuading others, choosing your battles wisely, and perfecting the art of tit-for-tat are essential to moving ahead in the workforce. In The Secret Handshake: Master the Politics of the Business Inner Circle, Kathleen Kelly Reardon, Ph.D. discusses these career-building activities in depth.
Reardon draws extensively on interviews with executives from Fortune 500 companies, discovering how they have made it to the inner circle of decision-makers. She examines how these elite leaders have recognized their own political style and create or find environments conducive to them. She gives tips on how to read between the lines and identify the political styles and motivations of others. Reardon even demonstrates conversational politics and strategies and different methods of coping with “heavy-handed” politics. Finally, Reardon ends with a few chapters on creating and enhancing power and cultivating influence.
As a disclaimer, the subject matter and methods discussed by Reardon are not the manipulative politics that many, rightly, despise. This is not a guidebook on how to effectively stab someone in the back and are not meant to be used in a “the ends justifies the means” Machiavellian fashion. They are useful supplementary guidelines in one’s journey to the decision-making body of their organization. Buy a copy via the link below… or ask to borrow mine.
– Dan Watson
OHDCC Member
Having spent considerable time investing in others via informal coaching, mentoring, and managing in professional roles and in volunteer situations, I’ve often come to expect the same of others especially with respect to organizational context.
Perhaps I’m an idealist, naïve or one of the many attribution effects I’ve learned about has taken place.
Nonetheless, the view that organizations should only do the minimum “[b]ecause of time and money that may end up subsidizing the competition” is a baffling excuse at best.
Plain and simple: one of the large reasons employees leave is because they do not feel as developed as they could be.
An August 2012 Harvard Business Review study of 1,200 young managers identifies a large gap between the support managers expect to receive from their employers and the actual services they receive. Areas addressed include mentoring, coaching, training, support from their direct manager(s), support from those senior across the organization and a job in a new function, product division, or market.
So the cycle of improper development leads to employees leaving which leads to increased costs of new hires across seniority levels.
Makes sense right? WRONG.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT: If all organizations operate on this same fallacy then we’ll just be recycling people until they decide to go somewhere else, do something else, or retire. So why not train people properly? Why not invest the money lost on filling the talent gap with external hires in true development?
BEST CASE SCENARIO: Employees are motivated, happy, show good organizational commitment and citizenship behaviors and become senior leaders helping to shape an effective culture while cultivating core values and growth.
WORST CASE SCENARIO: People attain the skills they desire and leave to go elsewhere. But guess what? If the commitment to development is true then that won’t matter. Organizations would have better talent pools to pick from across the board. Their unique industries will have fostered development and lend to one another’s potential resource pool. Or perhaps I’m being an idealist again.
So there’s a trade off to be made here. Develop and hope for the best or don’t develop and maintain the status quo.
MY VIEW: Mentoring, coaching, developing and growing others are worth the investment.
What’s your take? What do HR analytics tell us? Where’s the ROI model to offset or support the argument that development is too costly?
– Mark Tortora
OHDCC Member
What makes a great leader? Entire lives have been dedicated to distinguishing between the characteristics of good leaders and top-notch chiefs. We all know that it isn’t just intelligence, skill, or basic personality traits that place some above the rest. What are those key factors of truly successful leadership? Dr. Richard Davis, an I/O Psychologist and partner at RHR International, makes ten observations regarding excellent leadership based off his experiences as a consultant in his book “The Intangibles of Leadership: The 10 Qualities of Superior Executive Performance”.
1) Wisdom – It begins with basic intellect, but includes the ability to sieve through large amounts of information, be analytical, and utilize the information to inform current and future decisions across contexts and situations. Wisdom comes to fruition with experience.
2) Will – Don’t wait for things to happen. Go the extra mile. Give it all you have. Find ways around the obstacles you face. Produce, and own, outcomes. Be prepared for luck and seize the opportunity when it occurs.
3) Executive Maturity – This is not just about reading and understanding the emotions of others, but also being able to regulate your own emotions and use them to influence others.
4) Integrity – A multifaceted construct consisting of trust, consistency, and a moral compass. Davis stresses how this quality seems to be generally lacking as evidenced by the frequency of business and political scandals filling the pages of newspapers globally.
5) Social Judgment – The ability to analyze people and situations, and then make good decisions with the information. “To generate followership, one must understand and have insight into people.”
6) Presence – The perceived manifestation of authority and power. Reputation, identity, charisma, and both verbal and nonverbal communication skills all contribute to this aspect of executive leadership.
7) Self-Insight – Knowing your own strengths and weaknesses is just the beginning. Great leaders also understand their “hot buttons” and knowledge/skill gaps, recognize their impacts on other, are aware of their motivating forces, and have reflected upon how their unique life experiences have helped shape who they are currently.
8) Self-Efficacy – All of us in the Soc-Org Psych program here at TC know this one well – one’s belief in their ability to achieve a set of objectives, complete a task, or obtain a goal. Believe in yourself.
9) Fortitude – Individuals with this trait test themselves, show conviction in their actions, take responsibility, “go against the grain”, “don’t wilt in the face of bad news”, enforce justice, and have staying power.
10) Fallibility – A great leader acknowledges and embraces their own imperfections.
Davis’ reflections define what each trait is, how to recognize it, how to get it, why it matters, and is full of historical anecdotes and insightful quotes.
– Dan Watson
OHDCC Member
For those of us pursuing a career in consulting, case questions are an essential part of the equation for landing the job. As always we want to be well equipped for the task. As I learned at the PwC CIPS (case interview practice session) this past week it takes a lot of work to be well prepared for this aspect of the interview. It isn’t just about knowing concepts and theories. Mostly, it’s about demonstrating your ability to be analytical and think logically while utilizing those concepts, theories, and frameworks to tackle complex real-world organizational issues. Russ Hagey, the chief talent officer from one of the leading consulting firms, adds that potential candidates must also be able to articulate and defend their thinking along the way. No easy feat.
Luckily, there are many tools available to help us master this piece of the puzzle. As an article in the Wall Street Journal last week noted (see below for web links) there are dozens of guides available at major booksellers or websites like Amazon.com that can direct us through the necessary steps of tackling a case question. “‘Case in Point’ has become the biggest business book you never heard of…” The aforementioned book by Marc Cosentino, President of CaseQuestions.com, contains an inventory of “commandments” designed to help us ace the case question. Interestingly enough the PwC representatives at the last CIP session also spoke highly of this book during their presentation (with the caveat that while it is a bit light on the human capital scenarios it still provides the necessary framework for tackling case questions).
Don’t want to dish out $30 for the book? Another tool we have available to us are the CIP sessions offered through OHDCC. They are FREE! and provide great opportunities to network with actual consultants who have successfully navigated the interview process and deal with these types of business dilemmas almost every day. If you are interested in a career in consulting, or an internship for Spring/Summer 2013, I highly recommend you attend these workshops and start practicing!
– Dan Watson
OHDCC Member
Sources:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203335504578087170217786316.html
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204707104578091041425167674.html
ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1351972229&sr=8-1&keywords=case+in+point
This post originally appeared on the Ketchum blog: http://blog.ketchum.com/the-magic-of-metaphors-tools-for-leaders/
The Leadership Metaphor Explorer is a tool for helping a group or team think with more energy, insight, and creativity about the present and future of their work together. As Director of OD for Ketchum, I have the privilege to serve as a facilitator of leadership team alignment workshops. We help teams carve out dedicated time to productively discuss issues and arrive at high-value decisions. In this work, I often call upon metaphor-based exercises to help participants make more meaningful, thoughtful contributions and foster intellectually interesting conversations.
One of my favorite tools is from the Center for Creative Leadership. Their Leadership Metaphor Explorer cards are ideal for helping a group think deeply about the aspects of leadership that resonate in their organizations today as well as their aspirations for leadership tomorrow. The cards offer an extensive variety of postcard-size illustrations depicting myriad leadership metaphors such as Ambitious Pioneers, Co-creating Musicians, and Motivational Coaches.
I recently used the set with leaders at all levels at one of Ketchum’s specialty businesses. The goal was to engage in a productive dialogue about the elements of leadership that would serve the business for their next phase of growth. We wanted to honestly assess how current strengths and limitations would factor in to their leadership development journey.
The group of 40 was divided into table teams of 6-8. Their task was to review the deck of cards and do the following:
Each person select one card that depicts a strong aspect of leadership in their agency today, and
Each person also selects another card that depicts an aspect of leadership in the agency they think is needed for the future.
Following discussion, each table selected 5 cards that they believed told the best leadership vision story, and presented those cards and that story to the larger collective.
The resulting stories each group told of the desired future state were comprehensive and vibrant.
One group told this story:
“As ambitious pioneers we began our journey … and have evolved into group of peaceful warriors … always going to have an entrepreneurial spirit … and while we are no longer pioneers, the fighter in us continues to exist … we need to become a group of supportive teachers … the challenge is that teaching is a trial by fire experience. Perhaps this is an area to build up and become stronger in, about how we educate and bring culture to life as well as teach each other new things … be interweaving streams, since we all come from different perspectives, different jobs, new environments … joining all these perspectives together we become one strong body of water … we are Ubuntu (I am because we are) … multiple bodies overlapping.”
I attribute the depth of the stories to the cards, which provide a shared language and rich landscape of vocabulary around leadership that the group would have been unlikely to access on their own.
– Alumna Amanda Kowal Kenyon, Class of 1997
OHDCC I2I 