Art Petty on Management

In Hopeful Praise of the Millennials

To read the articles “The Trophy Kids Go to Work” (WSJ, 10/21) and especially to view programs like “Here Come the Millennials” (60 Minutes), you would be justified if the thought of what life will be like managing and working with this unique generation caused you to roll your eyes and reach for the aspirin bottle.

However, I suggest that you think twice before you prematurely write off the 80 million people born between 1980 and 1995.  While most of these individuals have grown up with us as “Helicopter Parents” hovering over nearly every activity of their lives from play-dates through college-enrollment and even job interviews.  I’ve seen glimpses of the future and I am encouraged about the potential for this generation. 

Much of the content around the Millennial generation focuses on their slightly sheltered upbringing, the emphasis on encouragement that we have provided in the form of constant praise and awarding trophies for just showing up and the widely reported unrealistic expectations that they have about life in the real world of work. 

In particular, the 60 Minutes piece (great fun to watch, although watch out if you are showing it to a group of Millennials) goes out of its way to hype the different and potentially selfish expectations that members of this new professional generation bring to the work environment.  Things like interesting work, flexible work hours, the freedom to be comfortable, the freedom to remain connected to the technology that they’ve grown up with, are all identified as issues.  Additionally, the group has expectations for rapid advancement and the ability to gain access immediately to those residing in the rarefied air of executive suites.  Hmmm.  So far, I’m not offended, and in fact, quite the contrary, I like the confidence and clarity of purpose that seems to be inherent in this generation.

The very wrong perspective on Millennials is that they are as a group, lazy.  Far from it, but they are restless and demanding.  Don’t ask them to pursue purposeless work, don’t expect great things if the job demands have them killing time, don’t minimize how important it is for them to be connected and to receive feedback, and most of all, don’t underestimate them.

This is the most technologically advanced generation of individuals in the history of the planet.  They’ve grown up using technology to multi-task, to reach large number of people in a hurry and they seem to have a different frame of reference on time than prior generations.  Communication is instantaneous, feedback is constant, brand is everything, fads are born, mature and decline in real-time and this group keeps moving, learning and creating. Sounds a lot like the business environment that we find ourselves struggling to understand. 

They may not know what they want to do for the next 30 years (an incomprehensible amount of time to think about work), but they do know that they are smart and adaptable and they are clear on what they don’t want to do: waste time like many of their parents fighting a losing battle with loyalty-free corporations.  There is little interest in “paying their dues” and frankly after having watched their parents over-pay their dues to be rewarded with life in a world that looks frighteningly similar to the Dilbert comic strip, who can blame them for wanting something different.

Whether I’m engaging with the older Millennials in my MBA classes or watching my own sons and their friends grow up, I can think of countless examples that make me excited about the impact that these people will have on our world.  The MBA students are wicked-smart and frighteningly worldly for their youthfulness.   The creativity and good character that I perceive in the older teens that I come in contact with are both exciting and reassuring.

My son on his own volition is traveling a great distance this weekend to spend a few minutes at the memorial service for a high school coach who passed unexpectedly.  He’s doing this because he knows that this is a simple token of respect and thanks.  It turns out that this coach’s former players are coming from around the country to spend a minute to say thanks to one from our generation that took the time to see the potential in them.  You wouldn’t recognize this loyalty and sense of responsibility from the content in the popular press about this generation.  It’s there, but it requires our own creativity as managers, leaders and parents to figure out how to tap into it.

The Bottom-Line for Now:

I’ll opt for the dissenting view on the Millennials.  Where others see management headaches, I see fire, creativity, passion, skill and maybe the capacity to face a world that looks very much the worse for our efforts.   Maybe, just maybe, this group will earn the label of The Next Greatest Generation.  Perhaps like the coach referenced above, you can still make a difference by helping this generation realize its potential. 

Overall, I’m encouraged and hopeful.

In Search of a Quantifiable Return on Leadership Development

Every few months, I run head-on into a discussion with someone (usually a prospective client) about how to value the return from investments in leadership development.  The question is not asked as a means of qualifying my services, but rather as a genuine practitioner-to-practitioner inquiry, not dissimilar to what two MDs might talk about with respect to the latest treatment results for an experimental drug program.  The person asking knows as well as I do that Return on Leadership Development continues to be an elusive issue that no one has substantively put to rest, and that our best answers are no stronger than impassioned, qualitative opinions. 

The venerable consulting firm, McKinsey & Company in their latest issue of The McKinsey Quarterly (2008, Number 4) offers some exciting results showing: “the relationship between financial performance as measured by profit per employee and ten dimensions of global management talent.”  Their findings: “Companies scoring in the top third of the survey (when all ten dimensions were combined” earned significantly higher profit per employee than those in the bottom third."

The McKinsey results showed strong correlations in three specific areas:

• The creation of globally consistent talent evaluation processes

• The management of cultural diversity

• The mobility of global leaders.

McKinsey indicated that the firms scoring top-third in any of these three areas had a 70% chance of scoring in top-third for financial performance.  Alternatively, companies scoring poorly on these practices had a strong chance of ending up in the bottom third for financial performance.

This is exciting information for anyone and everyone interested in gauging the impact of leadership development initiatives on corporate performance, however, before we consider this case closed, it is important to note McKinsey’s own comment that, "the study results do not show any true evidence of causality, but rather that the results, strengthen our belief that these are important areas on which businesses and HR leaders should focus their attention.”  It always comes down to belief.  Welcome to my conversations, McKinsey.

Should it Be Return on Expectations?

Another interesting thought comes from Professor Albert Vicere who describes his experience facilitating a group of executives through a discussion on how to calculate a return on leadership development:

“Discussion on how to calculate a return on leadership development and learning investments were frustrating until we saw the light, stopped talking about return on investment (ROI), and began talking about return on expectations (ROE).  Participants agreed that due to all sorts of complications we may never be able to calculate a clear financial return on learning initiatives, but if we’re clear on what we’re trying to accomplish through leadership development and learning and if we measure our results against those expectations, we may have the data we need to prove the value of our investments.”

OK, at least this group is giving us a reason to accept that valuing leadership development is a tough task. It is good to know that a bunch of smart people sat around thinking about this dilemma and the best that they could come up with was looking at from a different perspective.  They may be right, and the careful expectation setting and measurement around very specific leadership development initiatives may just yield the elusive data that we’ve been seeking.

Is it time to sharpen Occam’s Razor?

More often than not,the rough translation of  Occam’s Razor: “All things being equal, the simplest solution is the best,” proves true.  My non-statistically significant, can’t prove causality hunch is that effective leadership development practices are part of a whole system and that attempting to value them independent of the other components, while intellectually stimulating, is essentially valueless.  This is perhaps like attempting to value the worth of having a healthy heart in a cancer ravaged body or a healthy body carrying an artery-clogged heart.  No matter how you look at it, the body and organizations function as complex systems and a problem in any one part can adversely impact issues across the entire system. 

Aren't These The True Measures of Leadership Development's Value:

•    Quality
•    Financial health and performance (company and versus industry)
•    Innovation
•    Ability to Execute on Strategy
•    Employee Satisfaction
•    Customer Satisfaction
•    Growth versus industry participants
•    Retention and advancement of the right people and elimination of others
•    Fulfillment of mission
•    Growing contribution to community and society

The Bottom-Line for Now

If these items are generally accepted and desirable outcomes of a well-functioning organization, then executives looking at their talent development programs should quit focusing on the search for discrete ROI measures, and instead focus on identifying those practices that are likely to contribute the most to the above.  We may not prove causality, but just like McKinsey, it is my belief that focusing on becoming great at the right few talent and leadership development practices will yield higher performance than not focusing on these issues.  My vote says focus on: individual development planning, feedback and widespread involvement in strategy creation and execution, and the results will come and the other leadership development pieces will naturally fall into place.  Oh, and the decision on how to invest in development activities is a management team decision, not just an HR call.  Leadership Development is everyone’s business.

Surviving and Prospering Under a Weak Leader

It’s not secret that complaining about the boss is part of the culture of many teams and organizations.  The person in charge is an easy target and a certain amount of healthy griping about the boss may be cathartic for his or her subordinates.  It creates a common bond on teams where any form of bonding can help strengthen relationships and possibly performance.

When working with clients in consulting environments or working with teams in workshops, I tend to tune out background boss chatter until the tone and content of the conversation crosses what I call the Performance Line.  This line is crossed when it becomes clear to me that the performance of an individual or a team is being held hostage by a weak leader. 

In my recent post, Weak Leadership at the Top Derails the Pursuit of Performance Excellence, I characterize the problem as follows: Instead of overwhelming their associates with strict orders in pursuit of rigid targets, they (weak leaders) default on their responsibility to set direction in a poorly constructed attempt to create an environment of empowerment. The results of this approach include endless discussions without resultant actions and massive frustration of well-intended personnel that want to move projects and ideas forward. 

If you are working for someone that resembles this description, it can be a truly debilitating experience, especially if your nature is to drive and to innovate and experiment in pursuit of success.  Working for a weak leader can make you feel like you are running the Boston Marathon with your feet permanently encased in concrete.

I’ve worked with teams to identify ideas to help people break out of the concrete shoes created by a weak leader.  Here are some of the suggestions that they’ve come up with as they’ve talked through this dilemma.  Perhaps one or more of these will work for you.

Five Non-confrontational Suggestions for Coping and Even Prospering Under a Well-Meaning but Weak Leader

1. Make the leader the hero.  Not all weak leaders are bad people, and sometimes a dose of self-confidence is just what the doctor ordered.  Talk with this individual, paint a picture of how things will be different when the initiative in question is successful.  Show that you and your team have done a good job isolating and planning for the risks, and tie the expected outcomes back to organizational objectives or in the case of nonprofits, organizational missions. 

2.  Build Coalitions Across Your Peer Group.  A weak leader tends to create a vacuum of decision-making.  This vacuum can be filled by the leader’s subordinates aligned around the common need for action.  This is not a confrontational coalition, but rather a working coalition that moves things forward in spite of the leader. 

3.  Recognize the Psychology of the Weak Leader and Use Judo on It.  The weak leader syndrome is frequently a function of a lack of self-confidence, fear of having to say no to a subordinate and upsetting them, and perhaps fear of team mistakes shining directly on the leader.  This same person has a need to succeed, a desire to be liked and wants to feel that he or she has a voice in the direction.  Leverage this leader as you would a counselor.  Ask for help in framing solutions (even if it has already been framed), and make the leader very genuinely feel like an advisor and coach.  Make it comfortable for him or her to give feedback, and encourage this at every opportunity.  Involve the leader in brainstorming or in status reviews and do an extraordinary job of highlighting progress and or problems and how they are being handled. 

4.  Coach the Leader.  In spite of the lofty position, top leaders are often hungry for feedback and interested in receiving coaching from people that they trust.  Create opportunities for discussions that are not all about you.  If the leader provides an opening (many will), ask a few open ended questions about how things are going, what it’s like to deal with the Board etc., and shut up and let him or her talk.  It is amazing how lonely it can be at the top, and this act of listening can do a great deal of good in gaining the trust of a leader.

5.  Learn to Understand the Priorities of the Leader.  Applying several of the approaches above will help you understand the leader’s individual priorities (personal and professional).  This knowledge is priceless if you and your peers use it to help the leader meet his or her targets. 

The Bottom-Line for Now

Learning to manage your team leader takes time and requires extraordinary care and handling.  Being indecisive and failing to set direction are big shortcomings for a leader, but leaders that carry these attributes are all too common. You and your peers can either let the water-cooler complaints dominate the daily agenda or you can do something about it.  Teams and individuals that have leveraged some or all of the suggestions above have reported some nice successes.  No complete cures, but some nice successes and sustained progress in the right direction.  When your feet are cast in concrete, progress of any kind is good.

Weak Leadership at the Top Derails The Pursuit of Performance Excellence

While some top executives err on the side of asserting a dictatorial style of leadership that poisons the working environment and stifles independent action, in my experience, many more struggle with just the opposite.  Instead of overwhelming their associates with strict orders in pursuit of rigid targets, they default on their responsibility to set direction in a poorly constructed attempt to create an environment of empowerment. The results of this approach include endless discussions without resultant actions and massive frustration of well-intended personnel that want to move projects and ideas forward.

This laissez-faire top leadership style is particularly problematic when teams are facing vexing problems: a new strategy vector, the need to change imposed by external forces or a new operating initiative (e.g. a quality program).  At the point in time where resolve is required to step off the cliff in pursuit of the new initiative, this leader steps back and waits for the group to agree to jump. And waits, and waits, and then waits some more, while the group endlessly debates what it means to jump.  Committees are born, research initiatives established, and political agendas developed and asserted.  And still, the top leader waits, fearful that asserting authority will undermine the independent thinking and free spirited structure of the team.  What a disaster.

Don’t misinterpret my tone as an indictment of empowerment and the need for self-directed work teams at the senior level.  I believe that the best performing teams have a wide berth when it comes to identifying problems and developing and implementing solutions.  However, this type of effective team culture comes as a result of a conscious decision to empower.  Inherent in this conscious decision is the understanding of all parties that there is accountability for making progress and for ultimately improving the organization.  This is very different from the form of leadership where the lack of a decision and lack of responsibility for action is the permanent outcome.

I cannot speak with certainty about why some top leaders suffer from a chronically weak leadership and decision-making style, however, I suspect that it has a lot to do with a concern for upsetting people and a general discomfort with giving feedback.  Top leaders are most definitely not immune from the same challenges that everyone else faces when it comes to conducting tough discussions with others.  Top leaders want to be liked, they want to be respected and they want their direct reports to feel good about what they are doing, where they are working and who they are working for.   All of these provide good reasons for not upsetting the apple-cart in the mind of the top leader.

The Bottom-Line for Now:

There are no magical cures for the top leader that lacks the resolve to assert direction, require action or give feedback to under-performing teams or individuals.  Coaching can help if the individual recognizes his or her shortcomings and truly wants to change.  And while some top executives are willing to go down this path, too many are beyond the point where they think that they need to improve.  After all, they are in charge.

Next: How to survive if you work for a weak leader.

Leadership Development: "This is Squishy Feely" Stuff

The “Squishy Feely” statement was on a recent comment card for a workshop that I conducted.  The follow on note to that very technical phrase was, “We’re not going to do this.” 

The “stuff” and the “this” that this individual was referencing included things like:

• Providing growth opportunities for the firm’s associates by structuring assignments for developmental purposes.

• Working to identify the firm’s high potential talent and ensure that these individuals are gaining the experience and exposure that they need to develop into leaders in the near future.

• Increasing mentoring, coaching and improving feedback practices.  A survey of the firm’s associates indicated that this is generally absent from the environment.

• Involving people outside of the senior staff in providing input for strategy assessment and formulation.  It is presently a closed-door process.

• Taking time as a senior team to identify the attributes of future leaders and to begin forming a practical leadership competency model.

And a few other “Squishy Feely” things like the above.

It’s not uncommon to run into resistance from the senior members of an organization that has just recognized that it might be good to professionalize and improve talent development and acquisition processes.  I can even understand the “Squishy Feely” comment coming from a grizzled functional veteran that grew up in a world where the topic of talent identification, development and retention was not as front and center as it increasingly is today.  However the statement: “We’re not going to do this,” is impossible to fathom.   It’s a lot like saying, “It’s good to be ignorant.”  Or, “It’s OK not to breathe.”

Without launching into a diatribe on the need for organizations to become great at identifying, developing and retaining talent (I’ve co-authored a book and composed about 130 blog posts on this topic), I will instead encourage the professional dealing with the subject of leadership development to recognize the reality of the resistance that they face.    Ignorance and apathy are powerful adversaries and their cousin, fear of change, is perhaps even stronger. 

If you are leading or involved in driving the topic of leadership/talent development in your organization or with your team, it pays to understand what you are up against and to steel yourself for the resistance.  If you are doing this at the senior level, expect a marathon, not a sprint and take heart in the small, incremental victories. 

My post of a few months ago, Teaching a Senior Leadership Team to Dance with Leadership Development, includes what I believe are some useful tips for anyone involved with this issue at the top levels.  In it, I propose 8 Steps to Mastering the Leadership Development Dance, and frankly, upon further review and after considering the “Squishy Feely” comment, I stand behind the steps.  I am hopeful that they also have something for the mid-level manager seeking to strengthen practices at his or her level as well.)

The Bottom-Line for Now:

I can’t imagine not doing everything possible to arm myself and my company with the best possible talent at every level of the organization.  The day that the “We’re not going to do this” types retire or are otherwise invited to do something else is a victory for the rest of the organization.  Some will see the light…others will go on happy in their ignorance and narrowly focused on their minute to minute mission.  If you are about creating the future, don’t let the resisters slow you down. 

Has Your Management Team Decided to Be Successful Yet?

It is always great fun to work with management groups interested in growing their businesses, pursuing a new and bold vision or embarking upon new strategic directions.  More often than not, these groups have enjoyed success, established themselves and their firm in a favorable position and have a common excitement about what the future might hold.  They also talk about the fact that change will be necessary for growth, and it is usually about this point that the wheels start wobbling.

For some reason, teams that heretofore were successful often struggle at the point in time where they recognize that the business must change, and that means that they must change along with it.  We all know that the talents and skills that help launch a successful start-up may not be the same talents and skills needed to reach $10 million in annual revenue.  And a $40 million dollar company is much different than a $10 million or the start-up from whence it came.  And so on. 

As alluring as a grand new vision or compelling growth plan for the future might be, everyone on a management team knows that pulling this off will require significant change to what has often been a comfortable situation.  The reactions are fascinating.  People quickly anchor in some form of defensive or offensive behavior. 

• The passive-aggressive type nods her head in the meeting and proceeds to resist change in her everyday actions and decisions. 

• The doom-sayer plays on the very real fear that teams have of not only not succeeding, but of potentially taking steps in the wrong direction.

•  The cultural cheerleader frets about the loss of “what made us great”. 

• The anti-establishment type highlights the burden that the new bureaucracy will impose on the organization. 

Often, the net result is paralysis while the Chief Executive processes on the seemingly real and genuine fears of his or her top lieutenants. This period of paralysis over change is what I refer to as the point in time where the management team has not decided to be successful.  It doesn’t’ mean they want to be unsuccessful, they just haven’t decided that they want to succeed by the new definition.  Prior to this point, success was clear.  Hit our numbers, do our jobs, satisfy our customers and repeat.  Going forward, deciding to be successful means all of those plus creating needed infrastructure, engaging new talent, inviting new faces to the table and much more. 

There is no doubt that the issue of taking a good thing and trying to make it better, bigger and stronger is a complex and emotional one for many humans.  There are scores of books written on the topic of leading change in business. (Some of the best come from John Kotter.)  My issue is simple, and it is generally targeted at the top executive (or executives plural).  There is a time for debate, there is a time to let people vent and posture, and there is soon after, a time to move forward.  This point in time reflects the “decision to succeed” and is manifested by a new set of behaviors:

• Discussions begin to address tough topics with a focus on fixing or improving, not placing blame.

• The “We Can’t” or the “We’ve Never” discussions turn into “Why Can’t We” and “What If” discussions that result in ideas, actions and experiments.

• Dialogue down the organization ladder and across silos starts to take on the tone and feeling of action and forward movement.

• Problems shift to resource issues, project priority calls and the need to create new processes and approaches for decision making.

• Talent identification, leadership development and succession planning take on a new urgency and are called out as key priorities.

The Bottom Line for Now

The point in time when a firm decides to succeed on an agenda of change is the beginning of a great and challenging experience for everyone involved.  We work to live, but it is much more fun to live and work and grow and strive with a team that decided to be a success.  Unfortunately, many teams never move out of the abyss of “not deciding to succeed” and they decline until a crisis shocks the system or they eventually disappear from the landscape.   If your firm has not yet decided to be successful, you owe it to yourself and the firm to help move that decision along.  It’s really quite simple.  Management Team: please quit standing in the way of your own success and get on with it. 

Leadership Development Carnival #4: A One-Stop Shop for Great Ideas

I am pleased to be included in some great company again this month at the latest Leadership Development Carnival hosted at Great Leadership.  Dan McCarthy brings together  the perspectives of some exciting Carnival newcomers and some industry stalwarts.  Dan's monthly Carnivals may be the best leadership deal going...great content, ideas that you can use immediately and the price is definitely right. Grab a cup of coffee or favorite beverage and take a stroll through the Carnival.  You will be glad that you did. 

“If I had asked customers what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

Students of business history might recognize the quote above as coming from Henry Ford, the founder of Ford Motor Company and one of the early management innovators.  Mr. Ford’s quote raises a profound issue of when and how to listen to customers, or perhaps the more challenging flip side: when not to listen to customers.

The notion of not asking customers what they want and responding directly to their needs may seem like heresy to those individuals and organizations consumed with improving customer satisfaction and creating customer loyalty.  In fact, you should always listen and importantly, observe.  The real art in this process is understanding what customers really need, what problems they really would like to solve and what approaches and experiences that you can create that can surprise and delight them.

Harvard Professor, Clayton Christensen, seized upon this issue in his Innovator’s Dilemma/Innovator’s Solution books, where he suggests that a well-intentioned business may do everything right by listening and responding to customer requests, and ultimately fail as disruptive offerings upset the status quo.  

In my own work in the technology space over the past two decades, it is easy to look back at product development cycles driven by a never-ending desire to cram in customer-driven features, without a good understanding of why those features were needed and whether they were solving key problems or attacking symptoms.  It always felt like we were doing the right thing, but in hindsight, it was blind marketing. As Product Management systems improved and requirements development received more scrutiny, this situation improved.  Nonetheless, it is hard to see how the forest is changing when you are staring so intently at the trees. 

Christensen’s classic scenario is the company that dutifully enhances its offerings based on client input, ultimately creating bloated offerings with capabilities far exceeding what might be required of many or any buyers.  In the interim, a disruptive offering…something perhaps with fewer features and priced much lower (not always the case) can easily swoop in and…well, disrupt the market.  In essence, the well-managed, well-intentioned company created a vacuum that was filled by someone who understood the essence of the client’s problems…not just the features they were asking for.  (Think “Faster Horses” versus a new mode of transportation.)

The authors of the recent book, Tuned In, tackle this important topic by suggesting that a firm focus on developing Resonators, products or services that practically sell themselves.  Their six step process for creating a resonator and for Tuning In is in my opinion, a framework for avoiding the Innovator’s Dilemma that Christensen warns us about.

The design firm Ideo in their famous Deep Dive segment on ABC News showcase a process for design innovation that is what you might imagine a sociological dig would look like, as they follow and observe the various “buyers” of shopping carts in pursuit of understanding how this classic device could be grossly improved to better solve real problems.  While there is a fair amount of criticism of the “made for TV” nature of this episode, it offers some classic lessons in looking and observing to identify significant and perhaps even disruptive improvements.  Just asking a store manager or a customer about what they would like to see improved in their shopping cart may be insufficient for identifying what a shopping cart might actually be able to do.  Think cell phones and the iphone. 

The Bottom Line for Now:

My message here is intended as a cautionary tale.  It is good and right and noble to pursue increasing levels of customer satisfaction in your framework for operational excellence.  However, it is also easy to be misled by false signals, and sometimes those signals come from your customers.  Remember, they know you in a narrow context, so when they engage with you to talk about improving the Widgets that you make, they are thinking about you only as the Widget Company and as users of your widgets.  Their context is to give you ideas to improve your widgets. Just remember that it is quite possible that they don’t need a better widget or a faster horse. 

You need to build the institutional intelligence, the systems and of course the talent that truly focuses on understanding the unstated needs of buyers.  Of course, once you understand this, the real work of meeting and exceeding those needs as an organization begins. 

Is it Time to Panic?

I suspect that anyone not concerned about the state of “things” going on in our world and specifically in our economy would reasonably be labeled as naïve.  We have big problems, they could get bigger in a hurry or maybe they won’t.  The loss of some long-standing financial icons is annoying, the potential for the choking off of access to working capital for otherwise healthy companies is downright disconcerting.  The issues being debated in Washington have long-since ceased being about Wall Street and are most squarely about mitigating catastrophic risk on Main Street.

You don’t have to look far for some pundit somewhere offering up the end of life as we know it, usually with comments about a worldwide depression the likes of which we’ve never experienced.  Hey, they may be right or they may not.  I’ve long since given up trying to peer into the crystal ball and prognosticate beyond the late George Carlin’s famous weatherman bit that called for a forecast of “dark, followed by widely scattered light in the morning.”  The sun will rise and it will still be in the east.

In spite of my inability to foretell the future, I do know one thing for certain, it is never good to panic.  For you science fiction buffs out there, Frank Herbert had it right when he wrote that, “Fear is the Mind Killer.”  Panic creates a fight or flight response, where rational thinking is replaced by instinctual flailing.  Individuals panic, participants in markets can panic, and organizations can panic.  More often than not, the panic results in dramatic or even fatal mistakes.

Unfortunately, we have recent experience with horrific scenarios.  What happened on 9/11 was unthinkable on 9/10.  There were no road maps for dealing with the grief and the anger, and for awhile no one understood what was next.  It was a time when the best that many could hope for was to process on taking the next breath.  In all likelihood, we are still dealing with the ripples of this unthinkable day, and those ripples will likely shape the lives for generations to come in some form and fashion.

In addition to the pundits and talking heads, some really smart people that I know are beginning to let fear creep into panic.  Discussions of how to grow, how to compete better and even discussions about the pursuit of excellence are being replaced with focus on retrenching, battening down the hatches and/or boarding up the windows for the storm on the way.  Again, we would be naïve to ignore the signs and we would be naïve to think that anyone actually understands the impact of this horrific financial mess unfolding in front of us in real time, albeit drawn out over the past few weeks.  It’s time to focus on taking one breath at a time.

While there is some probability that the worst cases will play out, I will place my bet on widely scattered light towards morning.  There are many reasons why the world’s global capital markets cannot stop and why the earth’s burgeoning population and the world’s rapidly growing economies will not stop consuming, investing and yes, even growing.

As you look at your own firm and your own situation, it is not a time to take foolish risks.  Frankly, it’s never a time to do that, so nothing has changed.  It is a time to adopt a philosophy that seeks to find opportunity in chaos.  It is a time to carefully evaluate your strategies and check your assumptions.  It is also a time to consider making some hard calls on your future.  Working for a firm in the post 9/11 world where the board and leadership had the courage to invest in reinventing the firm’s core offerings at a time when our competitors were scaling back R+D efforts, was a brilliant learning lesson. 

It’s always time to improve your talent…either by investing in growing their knowledge and capabilities and by culling the herd.  It’s a great time to evaluate spending, to hold marketing accountable to genuine measures of value creation and to deploy the best-trained, solutions focused sales force to serve your customers.  It’s also a remarkable time to scale up your communications with your stakeholders and with your employees and provide them opportunities to share their many great ideas.   

The Bottom-Line for Now:

At the end of the day, people must eat, people must clothe themselves and frankly smart people will figure out how to use the opportunity to challenge themselves and their organizations to improve.  The rest will start boarding up the windows to hunker down for a long, agonizing wait.  I know which team that I want to be a part of. 

Career Growth and the Product Manager

I wear my respect on my shirt-sleeve for the many dedicated Product Management professionals that hold down what I believe is one of the most difficult and one of the most critical roles in today’s fast moving technology and B2B organizations.   (See my post: In Support of the Product Manager as MVP)  The individuals in these positions have a tremendous responsibility to provide guidance to the organization, often with little formal authority to translate this guidance into action. 

While admittedly biased based on my own PM and PM leadership experience, I firmly believe that these talented and well-rounded business professionals are potentially some of the most valuable assets in an organization’s talent pool.   Of course, realizing value from this talent requires a proactive approach to helping Product Managers develop some of the “softer” skills that we all know are important, but that we as leaders often overlook in our preoccupation with the day to day crises that can rule our lives.

Here’s my short-list of the skills that Product Managers cum Executives must focus on if they want to crack the ranks of senior leadership.  Given the fact that Product Managers are some of the only individuals that see the firm from the outside-in and inside-out, it is well worth it for Product Managers and their managers to steer development, and yes, training efforts towards these areas.

• Leadership: This is perhaps the stickiest or squishiest of all skill sets and yet developing context for the true role of a leader, understanding what it takes to build credibility and engender trust as a leader are critical lessons on the road to success.  Instead of generic leadership training, focus on an approach that emphasizes the development of key leadership skills and the application of these skills in a series of diverse leadership situations.  Ideally, any leadership development program for Product Managers will emphasize developing the skills and gaining experience for leading as an informal leader, leading horizontally and managing upwards.  (OK, again, I’m biased, but a manager armed with my book, Practical Lessons in Leadership and committed to creating a robust developmental program for their Product Managers is miles ahead of the manager sending their PM to some of the generic leadership training in the marketplace.)

• Strategic thinking.  Like leaders, strategists aren’t born and in most cases, they are made.  Few positions in a firm have the potential to contribute more to strategic thinking and strategy process creation and sustainability, than that of the Product Manager.  I was fortunate enough to enjoy early career mentors that challenged me to constantly think outside of my product, outside of my company and to look at the big picture, tune in to my various audiences and to develop and test strategic hypotheses while growing the business.  That is a very different way of thinking versus “what are the top 10 features that I can jam into my next release?”  Too many Product Managers don’t learn to look beyond their narrow scope (product, market segment) and all too many don’t grasp the importance of their role as a strategist in the overall firm’s plans.  Challenge yourself or your Product Managers to take an active role in educating the firm on the market and customer situation and proposing ideas to leverage the situation for growth.

• Communications Skills and Mastering the Art of Diplomacy.  Great Product Managers learn to speak the language of executives and they recognize that every encounter regardless of who they are meeting with, is an opportunity to build trust by understanding needs, creating shared perspectives and creating reasons for people and teams to move forward. The recent HBO miniseries, John Adams, based on David McCullough’s biography of the same name, shows the mercurial and aggressive Adams nearly destroying any chance to earn France’s support for the revolution, as he demands action and nearly destroys the hard-won credibility that Franklin had earned in several years of creating an understanding and developing shared-reasons to fight the British. The days of command and control leadership in the corporate world are generally over.  Developing a communication style that creates interest and fosters respect is essential for success.  Diplomatic skills to manage upwards, to manage across and to manage the generations and the various cultures via distributed teams are skills that will carry the Product Manager way beyond their mid-level role.

The Bottom-Line for Now:

Rather than coming across as picking on Product Managers for being deficient in leadership, strategic and communication/diplomatic skills, it is my intent to encourage them to proactively develop these skills.  It is remarkably easy to get caught up in the pursuit of day to day business and forget that everyday is a chance to advance your career.  If you are fortunate enough to have a great mentor, that is good.  If not, it’s incumbent upon you to take the initiative to create the experiences necessary for you to develop and fine tune these critical skills.  Your future depends upon it.