Art Petty on Management

Art Petty on Management Has Changed and Moved

I don't like to do things small or simple, so in what I sincerely hope is the absolute last time I put myself and you through this, I have moved and changed the name of my blog. 

You will now find me at www.artpetty.com and the new name of the blog is Management Excellence.

As I'm writing this and realizing that most people that have moved blogs have basically had to start over from zero to build traffic, this seems like taking two steps in the wrong direction.  However, sometimes you have to step back to grow, and I've got some compelling reasons for making the move, including:

• Integrating my former corporate web site and my blog under one content management system.

• Creating a simpler url (artpetty.com...12 characters versus the almost 40 for this site).

• Gaining the tools and the control through a hosted blog so that I can easily add planned podcasts, webcasts, forums and other tools that I will roll out this year.

• Aligning my blog's name: Management Excellence with my personal mission to promote high performance, great leadership and the pursuit of excellence in business.  

All of the posts and hopefully, all of the comments have been moved to the new site, so 14 months,  160 plus essays and a tremendous number of thoughtful comments on best practices in leadership and strategy, project management, product management and marketing and sales, all remain part of the library. 

For those of you that subscribe via your favorite Reader or happen across this post via Search, please take the opportunity to visit the new Management Excellence site and click on the site's feed.  And don't forget to check out some of the new tools, including the live polls, free down-loadable tools and links and references to many other great resources.

Thanks so much for reading and referencing Art Petty on Management, and I hope to earn your confidence many times over in my new home at the Management Excellence blog!

Back to School!

We delivered our oldest son to college on Friday and our high school senior survived (barely) the annual “first day of school picture” in our backyard this morning.  I am busy preparing class  materials for my Fall MBA courses and it feels like summer is officially over regardless of what the meteorological calendar says.

I love “Back to School” time every year.  There’s a palpable level of excitement in the air tinged with just a bit of sadness about the end of vacations, beach reading and weekend barbecues.  It’s also a time where education is (or should be) the focal point in many households as students and parents get ready for homework, tests and projects.  And while we all know that education and learning have no season, our reliance in the U.S. Midwest on an arcane but not unpleasant long summer break (versus year-around school interspersed with shorter breaks in many other regions), makes the return to school all the more dramatic. 

One of the things we often lose as busy working adults is that sense of excitement about learning.  It’s easy to let years and even decades slip by and focus on everything but our own self-development.  Sure, we attend mandated training in our company and possibly even the periodic seminar to earn the Continuing Education Units (CEUs) mandated by our professional certifying organizations.  Unfortunately, neither of those formats creates the exhilarating sense of learning and discovery that we may have had at some time earlier in our lives, but lost along the way to becoming responsible adults.

As a hiring manager for many years and now as a leadership development trainer and consultant, I’ve talked with hundreds of people about their continuing education, and I am always surprised when people struggle to describe anything substantive in this area.  Somewhere earlier in my school career, I remember an educator banging the drum repeatedly that “learning is a life-long process,” and I believed him. 

It’s my observation that the most capable and most successful individuals are constantly seeking knowledge, relentlessly working to expand their skills and often driven by some inner-sense of the need to learn through exposure to new ideas.  If you fit this description, quit reading and get back to what you were doing.  If you have to go back decades to recall the last course you took or the last time you read a book that wasn’t on the fiction best-seller list (nothing wrong with fiction best sellers, but diversity is good), here’s a list of activities to help you rekindle your love of learning and your pursuit of knowledge:

• Join a local book club (contact your library for ideas) and gain from the perspectives of others and the rigor of having to stay on task with your reading assignments.

• Start and lead a book club at your place of work—you might even get the company to pay for the books!

• Spend some time researching the state of the art in education and certifications for your profession.  If you end up feeling hopelessly outdated, it’s time to take the next step and choose a workshop, a certification program or even another degree program.

• If you hate the idea of physically attending class, investigate on-line opportunities.  The number of programs delivered on-line is growing daily and the flexibility is great for busy people.

• Consider a program outside your core field of expertise.  In the Chicago-area, Northwestern, University of Chicago and DePaul all have some remarkable humanities and literature programs that are designed for and filled with doctors, lawyers, teachers and professionals from every other possible vocation.  If you don’t want the rigor of a degree investigate certificate options or possibly even just auditing a course.  Individuals that I know that have gone through these courses credit them for helping open their eyes to a whole world of ideas that they didn’t know existed.

• More reading.  Put down the trade journals for a while and pursue something in the history or biography sections.  It’s remarkable what we learn from studying what others have already gone through.

• Executive Education can be exhilarating.  I go to Kellogg to recharge and I always leave a program with ideas to help improve my performance and my business.  Exec Ed is big business and big $, but many companies support the initiative.

• Take advantage of tuition reimbursement dollars from your company.  Most organizations never spend what they’ve budgeted in this area.  You can help solve this problem.

• Seek out a mentor.  Depending upon where you are at in your career, this can be an enlightening experience. If you are beyond the “seeking” phase, consider becoming a mentor.

• Teach a class.  A wise person indicated that if you want to learn about something, sign up to teach a class about it. 

• Volunteer to lead an initiative in the community.  Some of the best leaders and project managers that I know are found on the teams and programs in schools and churches.

The Bottom-Line for Now:

The brain is a lot like the body…use it and it stays fit and ready for action.  Allow it to atrophy and everything becomes a struggle.  You have a remarkable capacity to learn.  Whether you use it or not is up to you. 

The concept of the Learning Organization is well established and widely acknowledged as a requirement for realizing and sustaining success.  Senge described the need to not only create organizations that learn and adapt, but to realize those that become generative and to create their own futures.  Your ability to consistently add value to your organization is in large part related to your active pursuit of new ideas and new ways of looking at the world. 

What’s on your mind today?

We Are All Just Temporary Stewards

My blogging volume is off a bit due to client engagements and teaching activities (a good problem), but I had to take a timeout this afternoon and share some thoughts from a recent discussion.  A very thoughtful manager summed up his perspective on his role in the organization as that of a Temporary Steward. 

With his permission, and I am paraphrasing: “It’s not our business, it’s not our company, but we have a responsibility to those that will inevitably take over from us to leave the business in the best possible condition.”  Thoughtful comments and an interesting way to look at things.

While I suppose you could interpret the Temporary Steward label as a means of rationalizing subpar performance or lack of engagement, for this manager, it was just the opposite.  It was clear from our discussion, that he cares very deeply about the organization’s success, about its future state given the changing world that we live in, and importantly, about the people that work in the organization. 

From my own perspective, I like the concept of thinking about our tenure as finite.  It creates a sense of urgency and it helps us focus on priorities.  I’ve observed too many corporate managers that lost track of the fact that they are not guaranteed a job or even that their company will be there next week.  Once you start acting like you own the bricks and mortar and the chair and desk that you sit at and even the people that work for you, your judgment clouds, your motivation weakens and your intentions become suspect. 

The Tenets of the Temporary Steward

• I’m responsible for contributing more everyday than I take out of the organization.

• I’m accountable to future leaders, managers and employees to do my best to ensure that there is an organization in place for them to contribute to, earn from and to grow.

• I recognize that I am here on the good graces of customers and stakeholders, and I will seek to create value for them every day.

• If I manage people, I’m responsible for doing the heavy lifting and difficult work of providing constant feedback, supporting individual development and eliminating those that can’t perform or that don’t match our values.

• I’m responsible for watching what is going on in the world around us and for helping pick a path to march down.  I’m also responsible for recognizing when we’ve chosen the wrong path and helping us change course.

• I won’t take myself so seriously that it causes me to strike out in anger, play politics or spend unproductive time complaining. 

• I’ll work hard to recognize when it is my time for my stewardship to end, and I’ll look back on the successes and failures as learning experiences.  I’ll leave the regrets for someone else, because as a Temporary Steward, I’ll know that I left everything that I had on the playing field.

The Bottom-Line for Now:

Don’t take yourself so seriously that you start believing that you transcend the organization.  Start focusing on what you can do to create value today that will ensure that there is a future for your organization.  And remember that  you will not pass this way or live this day again.  Leave things better than you found them.

Strengthen Your Team By Seeking People Who Believe that They Can Grow

In this must-read article: “If You’re Open to Growth, You Tend to Grow,” by Janet Rae-Dupree, Stanford Psychologist Carol Dweck  summarizes decades of research into how people think about intelligence and talent with the following:

“Those who believe that they were born with all the smarts and gifts they’re every going to have approach life with a fixed mind-set.  Those who believe that their own abilities can expand over time, however, live with a growth mind-set.”

Dweck goes on to indicate: “People who believe in the power of talent tend not to fulfill their potential because they’re so concerned with looking smart and not making mistakes. But people who believe that talent can be developed are the ones who really push, stretch, confront their own mistakes and learn from them.”

The article continues with some great examples and worthwhile advice for any leader or recruiter charged with building or strengthening a team. 

Rethink How and Where You Look for Talent:

The greatest personal/professional successes that I’ve witnessed over my career have come from individuals with an unyielding thirst for knowledge and personal development. While many of these individuals were gifted with natural abilities, their innate sense of adventure and experimentation and their attitude that failure puts you one step closer to success, combined to help these individuals create great careers.

Interestingly, many of the successes that I recall were with individuals working in lower-level jobs due to lack of formal credentials.  The secretary that developed into a remarkable marketing professional; the customer service rep that became a consistent top-seller and ultimately a successful sales executive and the technician that developed into a great product manager, are just a few of the examples of people that were driven by a growth mind-set.  Of course, it didn’t hurt that these professionals benefitted from a supervisor or manager along the way that took the time to get to know them and recognize their potential for growth. It took an enlightened observer to see the talent and the hunger in these individuals

Don’t Let the Pedigree Be the Only Determinant:

I can think of numerous examples of situations where clearly brilliant individuals failed miserably because they were afraid that if they slipped up, the world might question their brilliance.  Instead of helping the business, these individuals spent most of their time making certain that everyone around them understood how smart they were.  And while the academic credentials were visible, if you looked beneath the ivy, there was no innate drive to succeed; no focus on innovating and no interest even to learn by trying and failing. 

The Bottom-Line for Now:

Look back on your own recent string of hires and promotions, and if your batting average is lower than you would like it to be, consider Ms. Dweck’s advice: “look for both talent and a growth mind-set in prospective hires—people with a passion for learning who thrive on challenge and change.  And remember to open your eyes and look around you for talent in unexpected places.  Your greatest future success stories might be closer than they appear.

Living, Learning and Leading in an Increasingly Virtual World

Somewhere between the world I grew up in and the world that we are living in today, everything about working, leading and learning began to change.  It’s increasingly a virtual world, and everything about communicating, interacting and developing relationships feels a bit different than it used to.  While many/most of us are compliant with the changes in communications (telex to fax to e-mail to IM, web conferencing etc.), I wonder how many of us are truly working to become competent at living and working in this world. 

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been reminded of the changes in how we live, learn, earn and engage, and I’m working hard to adapt. 

• A valued colleague sends me a note expressing frustration over the challenges of leading remotely.  I can’t believe I haven’t spent more time on this valuable topic.  Stay tuned.

• I delivered a webinar and I realized that I have to get better at communicating without interaction.  I’ve set a schedule to begin doing some of these blog posts as podcasts as a means of increasing my comfort and competence communicating to an invisible audience.

• I signed up to teach an on-line course expressly for the purpose of discovering what it means to “teach” on-line.

• My kids don’t use their phones for talking.  If I want to reach them, I send a text message and get a response practically before I’m done typing.  (I saw this coming a few years ago when I asked my youngest son why he never calls friends on the phone.  He looked at me kind of funny and said, “Why would I want to talk with one person when I can be on-line with all of my friends at the same time.”)

• An article at Fast Company indicates that in the next few years, technology will obliterate the need to travel.  (Hmmm, I'm suspicious of the word obliterate.)

• I am busy working on an on-line content strategy to augment my own face-to-face seminar/workshop activities. 

The common thread in all of these items is the shift in how we work, lead and learn.  Like it or not, the world is becoming more and more virtual everyday, and those of us that are old enough to remember life before fax machines and e-mail will be well-served to quit fighting the trend and start learning how to become competent and comfortable communicating to no-one and everyone at the same time. 

It was just a few years ago that I received my first request to fund an employee’s pursuit of an on-line degree.  I am a staunch advocate of the importance of the face-to-face network developed at school, especially for MBA students, and while I approved the request, I recall challenging the value.  Since that time, I know of dozens of professionals that have had great experiences earning degrees on-line.  I still question whether there is any chance that you can develop a close network in that manner, but hey, this is the era of Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn, where it is seemingly more about contacts than close relationships.  (I’m still suspicious of that premise.)

One of the critical leadership skills of our time is developing comfort and competence at leading distributed teams.  There are still some firms that insist on their managers and leaders being housed within a line of sight, but they are showing their lack of understanding of how the world is changing.  The literature on leading remotely seems to offer superficial guidance from people adapting old models to new situations.  I suspect that as time moves on, the profession of leadership will evolve to take into account the very distinct skills and approaches needed to lead effectively while never coming into personal contact.  (As a side note, I deal with many people on the receiving side of remote leadership.  At best, the leader to employee relationships they describe are superficial.  We haven’t figured this one out yet. )

The Bottom-Line for Now:

The difference between compliance with new technologies and new styles of communicating and competence at leveraging these tools and styles for results is significant.  Deriving value from virtual leader/employee relationships or on-line learning is a very different task for all parties involved than it was in the almost bygone era of face-to-face.  It’s time to quit fighting the changes and learn how to master the new opportunities to engage.  I still struggle to see how these new methods will replicate the richness of face-to-face communication, but that’s my problem to deal with as the world keeps changing.  In the meantime, if you are looking for me, don’t call…I’m busy learning how to communicate all over again.

Decision-Making and The Three Rules of Risk Management

Your decision-making style says a lot about you as a leader.  Some people make a lot of decisions with little more than a gut hunch to guide them and others spend a lot of time gathering insights and information to support their decision.  Others struggle to make decisions on anything and might still be considering what to order for breakfast when it’s time for dinner.  And still others avoid making decisions because taking a stand increases the odds that they will be held accountable for results.  

Our decision-making style is driven in large part by our tolerance of risk, something that can change based on many personal and professional circumstances.  An executive guiding a turn-around might operate with a high-degree of risk tolerance, while a project manager leading a construction project might have a much lower risk tolerance.  First-time leaders might not have formed a solid decision-making style and might process risk at a slightly more conservative level than how they perceive their direct manager dealing with it. 

A participant in a recent leadership workshop that I conducted offered up the Three Rules of Risk Management that she learned from her father (an engineer).  I am grateful that she shared and appreciative of the wisdom her father passed along in these simple but powerful rules.

The Three Rules of Risk Management

1. Don’t risk more than you can afford to lose.

Good advice for corporate leaders, mid-level managers and everyone in their personal lives.  Determining what you can “afford to lose” is of course the key issue here, and sometimes not so easy to calculate.  A patient requiring a heart-transplant to live has one definition and a single parent that needs a paycheck to feed his family has another.  It’s OK to agonize over this one a bit…it is the foundational data point of the Three Rules.

2. Never risk a lot for a little.

Common sense, yes, but I see this one violated everyday. People risk their credibility arguing over who’s right and who’s wrong on small issues.  Boards and executive teams pursue ill-conceived acquisitions based on questionable assumptions.  Marketing and development teams invest heavily in new products without a good understanding of the problem they are trying to solve for their prospective buyers. The operative issue here is defining whether the perceived end game or outcome is worth a lot (usually the assumption) or some fraction of a lot (usually reality).  Align risk with the true definition of the outcome.

3. In general, take the risk if you can affect the outcome.

In my opinion, this is the most profound of the three rules, and another point worth agonizing over as you formulate your decision.  Hoping that the dice roll your way is what helped build all of those grand palaces in Las Vegas.  You cannot control the dice…they have a mind of their own, and in a business environment, hoping for the market to move your way is a guarantee that you will make your better-prepared competitor rich.  You cannot affect the outcome of most situations at 100 percent, so once again, you are left to sort what you can control and what is beyond your control.  This rule guides you to accept risk if you can control a significant portion of the outcome. 

The Bottom-Line for Now:

Learning to think through your risk-environment can help you make the right calls on the tough issues.  The Three Rules are not a silver-bullet, but they do offer a simple framework for mentally processing the implications of a decision. 

In general, I’ve found that most people prefer working for leaders that make a lot of decisions and that make decisions quickly.  Certainly, a leader that is slow to make up her mind or that will never make a decision has an adverse impact on her team and her organization.  Alternatively, a leader that is too fast to decide or that decides more on a hunch than a good understanding of the facts, issues and risks, is prone to making significant mistakes as well.  The trick is finding the right balance, and balance is about understanding and measuring your risks against possible returns.  Use the Three Rules to find the right risk/return balance for your decisions. 

Help Wanted: Great Leaders to Solve Vexing World Problems

This is what I describe as a boil-over post—short on useful advice and long on observations about the obvious.  I usually shy away from commenting on the world scene, however, I'm breaking form today. 

As is my habit on gorgeous Mid-Western U.S. mornings (that's for all of you folks all over the globe that love to point out the temperature differentials to me in February!), I rise early, grab a quick cup of English Breakfast Tea, glance at the Wall Street Journal and then jump on my bicycle for my wake-up workout.  I suppose this morning's paper is not much different than every other paper for the last few months, but as I said, this is a boil-over post: it's been simmering for a while.  My positive spin on the over-abundance of miserable news is that this is a great time for leaders everywhere to ply their trade and show the world what they are made of.

Just a few of our very visible and very important "leadership" opportunities:

The Economy.  The Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke has perhaps the worst job on the planet right now.  In what is looking more and more like a perfect storm, the Chairman must simultaneously deal with the still-unfolding housing crash, the implosion in mortgage financing, the wholesale failure of some of the planet's alleged smartest financiers to do anything right (think Bear Sterns), record oil prices, a record low dollar value, the specter of inflation and general weakness in many U.S. and global markets.  Perhaps the only thing more complicated than the macroeconomic environment is the weather.  Oh yeah, if Chairman Bernanke's daily dilemmas aren't tough enough, spend a few minutes listening to the windbags in Congress posture while they attempt to blame him for everything, including the '29 crash.

U.S Auto Manufacturers.   The headline I want to see is: U.S. Auto Executives Fired En Masse for Arrogance, Idiocy and Forgetting to Diversify their Product Portfolios.  What is galling to me is that these executives had clear visibility into competitor strategies as well as the bigger picture of energy and oil.  Did they really expect to live on the profits from the SUVs and Trucks of the '90's forever?  Killing an industry should be a crime punishable by ample jail time.

U.S. Airlines (except for Southwest).  Most of my work is in the Chicago-area, so I've avoided flying for a while.  A good friend of mine described his recent experience on a major carrier as: "something out of a movie shot in a third-world country."  In a bold stroke, most major U.S. carriers (except Southwest) have decided to bet their survival on making an already lousy experience miserable.  I wonder what happened to the memo that said that if we serve our customers and give them great reasons to use our services, they will help us weather the storm.  Jail time for these execs as well.  It's time for some fresh approaches from new leaders interested in running businesses that serve customers.

Iraq.  Absolutely no joking here...U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians are losing their lives.  This situation has serious repercussions for the U.S. and for the Middle East for years to come.  The next President will be saddled with resolving (hopefully) this nightmare.  There are encouraging signs, but it is a complex situation.  Kudos to the military leaders on the ground and the brave citizens that are working towards a self-governing, democratic Iraq.

Iran.  Hmmm, if this situation wasn't complex enough, the leaders in this country seem to relish their ability to destabilize. 

I could keep going, but I won't.  It's time to stop, with just one other light by comparison leadership dilemma: Brett Favre.  As I'm writing this, my oldest son is listening to ESPN reporting on the Brett Favre saga.  Put yourself in the shoes of the Packer's GM, Ted Thompson, who has to decide whether to fire this remarkable Wisconsin (via Mississippi) hero or bring him back and let him play in spite of having moved on once Brett announced his retirement a few months ago. 

I do have some advice for Ted Thompson, and it is based on the track record of Jerry Krause, the former Chicago Bulls General Manager who once indicated that one of his major goals was to build a championship team without Michael Jordan.  How did that work out, Jerry?

The End of the Rave For Now:

Tough times and challenging circumstances provide outstanding opportunities for leaders at all levels to test their mettle and gain valuable experience.  There have been few times in recent history with this number of complex challenges staring at us in everything that we do.  As individuals, we cannot solve these issues alone, but we can hold our leaders from local politicians to congress and the next President accountable.  We can make good decisions with our finances, demand accountability from our elected officials and challenge the leaders in our businesses to do more than focus on the short-term.  We can support our troops even if we disagree with the policies, and we can cast our vote this November.  It's a great time for leaders everywhere to stand up and be counted.

Leader: What's Your Strategy for Managing Your 30 and 40-Somethings?

After too many conversations to count with talented individuals in their late thirties or early forties that are asking, "Is this it?" about their professional lives, I am compelled to offer some advice for their leaders.  I'll start with: "Wake Up and Pay Attention!"

Professionals in this age range are at a critical juncture in their careers.  They are experienced, hard working and confident in how to contribute.  They've made and learned from many of the mistakes of youth and they've begun to develop something so critical for organizational success: wisdom based on experience.  They've also generally decided what motivates them, what they like in a leader, the type of work that they are best at, and that life is too short to spend time in the wrong place or working for the wrong person. 

The common theme that I am hearing in my discussions with these talented and motivated professionals is frustration over the inability of their superiors to leverage their skills and experience.  It's not a whining theme...it's an "I am capable and experienced and want to be treated as such and contribute more" lament.  It is very different from the whining that many people engage in about the person that they work for. 

Comments include (paraphrased):

Instead of the challenges that we talked about when I interviewed, I jumped in to fill a gap in operations and now I can't get out of this mundane role.

The charisma of the CEO during the interview process is gone now that I'm an employee.  His general response to every idea or suggestion is anger.

They didn't need someone with my experience, they needed a college graduate or someone fresh out of the service that wouldn't know any better about constantly having orders barked at them. 

There's no reward in this work.

I've been doing the same basic things for 20 years...it's boring and I can't take it any more.

They need to decide if they are going to use me or they will lose me.

My life is racing past me but my career is stuck in futile mode.

I kept offering to help on the big issues and I was told I was overstepping my boundaries so I gave up.

And so on.

The Leader's Suggestion List for Managing 30 and 40-Somethings:

• Recognize and leverage the growing need of people in this age range to contribute at an increasing level.  Figure out how to do this and watch the accomplishment list grow.

• Design positions and assignments that are challenging and provide these professionals the latitude they need to succeed.

• I've noticed that after 15 years of working, many professionals develop a hunger for learning.  Feed this hunger through professional development and even better, feed the hunger and leverage the experience by asking these professionals to teach in the organization.

• Work on your self-awareness and emotional intelligence.  Frankly, you shouldn't treat anyone by typically responding with anger as was cited above, and especially don't treat experienced professionals like that and expect to keep them. 

• Provide opportunities for mid-career professionals to mentor younger employees.

• A few months after hiring an experienced professional, sit down and genuinely seek their input and perspectives on issues and improvements.  Let them take ownership of some of their ideas and drive the improvements.

• Use judo on the situation and let the individuals set their own stretch goals. 

• Tune in to an individual's mid-life career objectives and work together to develop a program that supports achievement of those objectives.

• Match mid-career professionals with both early-career and nearing retirement employees to collaborate on problem solving and project development.  The mixing of the generations is beneficial for all parties involved.

The Bottom-Line for Now:

As a leader, you cannot afford to allow the best, brightest and most-experienced employees to feel detached and unmotivated.  I suspect that more often than not, you as the leader have a hand in creating this problem, and you definitely can help solve it.  It's time to sit down, talk and most importantly, listen to what your thirty and forty-somethings have to say.  These are the leaders in your immediate future.  Don't come up short just when these talented professionals are ready to pay off. 

Read Any Good Cultures Lately? Honing an Essential Career Skill.

Every organization has a distinct culture defined by its history, norms, values, and behaviors, and every team in an organization develops its own subculture.  Learning to read a culture and adapt your style to fit (or at least complement it) is essential to success regardless of your level or role.  It's also something that can be honed as a skill through increased awareness and consistent application of a few basic approaches.

The Meeting is Never for Decision-Making: A Product Management Lesson I Learned at Matsushita

I will be posting from airport lounges this week, but before I head out, I wanted to relate a lesson about decision-making that I learned (the hard way) a number of years ago.  This was prompted by a discussion with a promising early career product management professional, "Bob," that had expressed frustration at the way decisions were reached in his company. I think that the lesson still holds today.