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The Leadership Challenge: Complacency – 4 Tips!

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The Point: We’ve all been there before… Things are going well and perhaps the last thing we should entertain is a moment of change. After all, what could we possibly gain (and only risk loss) by changing? However the go/no go decision regarding change is rarely within a leader’s control, and as such change becomes a necessary contingency planning skill. So how can you, as a leader, offset the comfortable confines of complacency effectively? In this post we’ll take a look at complacency from a change perspective and provide four (4) tips to offset its lethargic state… Enjoy!

The Leadership Challenge: Complacency – 4 Tips!

The J Curve of Change Management

It’s been nearly a dozen years (Yikes!) since I sat with Dr. Jerry Jellison of the University of Southern California (USC) about dealing effectively as a leader with change. His book, “Managing the Dynamics of Change” provided the backdrop for our conversation during a leadership development program I was participating in. The “J” Curve of Change represents five (5) stages of change that can be mapped out from a performance/productivity stance over a series of time (See image). The J Curve of Change Management consists of a series of troughs and peaks, but oddly enough begins with a relatively morose and non-descript path of performance. While this “complacency” phase can best be described as one where action is taking place, there is relatively no performance/productivity change (for better or for worse).

So Why Exactly Change?

With tears in her eyes a participant in a cross-functional (multi-departmental) change team cried out “Why are you making us do this?” It wasn’t me, her leadership team, or my consulting firm (at the time) that was making this organization change possible to create the water works show. What was causing the change-moment (as I liked to call it) occur was the evolving market conditions.

If you can identify the source of the change moment (i.e., the real answer to “Why are you making us do this?”) you have the opportunity to not only overcome the many change obstacles that are presented to you, but also shorten the associated change timeline (and therefore create positive productivity/performance). So what are the possible causes of change? Here is an abbreviated list of what I see most commonly causing change in business today for leaders:

  • Technology
  • Education (Personnel/Consumer)
  • Personnel Skills
  • Competition
  • Product/Service Pricing
  • Product/Service Offering(s)
  • The Customer (Darn them!)
  • Regulations/Laws
  • Leadership ADD/Leadership ADHD
  • Finance/Accounting
  • Leadership Ego/Pride
  • The News/Press

4 Tips to Overcome The Leadership Challenge Complacency

While the list of potential causes of change has been abbreviated above, you hopefully get the impression that there can be an overwhelming variety/scope/scale of change inducing moments. So should you as a leader attempt to get ahead of the change curve and always be refining (or attempting to move in a positive change direction?) I’ve compiled the following 4 tips to overcome the leadership challenge of complacency to help you, as a leader, be successful in your complacency change initiatives:

Tip #1 – Manage by Measuring

It’s important to know not only where you are going (in alignment with corporate mission/vision/values of course), but perhaps even more important to know where you are at (and don’t forget where you came from, but that’s a post for another time!) Capturing consistent metrics will allow you to identify this current state, and establish a game plan for how you will get to where you want to go.

Tip #2 – Contingency Plan

If you are in a complacent state, some would argue that this in and of itself is a problem (after all, you are not getting better or worse). Therefore it’s important to identify current/future problems that could/should/might occur as well as their appropriate solutions.

Tip #3 – Recruit Support (Before You Need It!)

Let’s face it… Change is difficult for a variety of reasons. In the thick of change initiatives it’s important to have support from key stakeholders in the organization (Those that are organization chart superior, equal, and subordinate in location). These support personnel could also alert you to change before your metrics identify them.

Tip #4 – Focus

Keeping your “eyes on the prize” is a great analogy for overcoming complacency in the workplace. Where you want to head will allow you to insure that you keep pointed in that direction, as well as provide you with insight into how to get there.

SUMMARY

In this post we’ve taken a look at complacency from a change perspective and provide four (4) tips to offset its lethargic state. If the overriding goal of change management is to provide a “better” alternative in regards to where you started from, overcoming complacency is a crucial first step.

 

Sam Palazzolo

The Leadership Challenge: Creativity – 3 Tips!

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The Point: The use of a leader’s imagination or original ideas in the workplace has typically been shied away from, primarily because of the “artistic” nature prescribed and partly due to the unmanageable predictability for continuous repetition and outcomes (i.e., results!) But what if the lure of a changed tomorrow is perceived as better than the results generated today? In this post, we’ll take a look at the leadership challenge of creativity and just what you can do to accelerate your creativity as a leader with three (3) tips… Enjoy!

The Leadership Challenge: Creativity – 3 Tips!

Management is Science… Leadership is Art

In the day-in/day-out running of your business, whether it be department/division/organization you might recognize the operation as running in status quo fashion. What was good enough yesterday, should be good enough for tomorrow, right? Wrong! Checking accomplishment boxes and maintaining your open-door policy (or better yet Management By Walking Around (MBWA) methodology could very well leave you wondering just how and when the operation got positioned squarely behind the proverbial 8-ball in the business game world of pool.

While creativity for leaders has long been seen as something focused on in startups or other disciplines (most notably academic fields such as anthropology and neuroscience), the need for consistent improved results requires a more expansive/diverse application of the topic. For example, look at your most recent project accomplishments and gage your execution capabilities and life-cycle timelines. A hindsight/post-mortem analysis typically leaves a leader recognizing results short of potential.

3 Tips to Increase Leadership Creativity

So if true potential is to be realized by the leader, what is the proper mindset and processes to be explored? What follows are 3 Tips to assist you (the leader) with increasing creativity.

Tip #1 – Generate Ideas

Ideas are all around you, but often rarely tapped or heard. Why? If you’re looking to generate creativity you need look no further than your stakeholders assisting you as you strive to achieve your goals. Interviewing stakeholders regarding what their ideas are for improvement, and tracking which ideas are backed (versus those that garner little/no support) can reveal sources and opportunities left untapped.

Tip #2 – Enable Collaboration

We often hear that places of business are high on teamwork and/or collaboration within. However common practice probably leaves stakeholders clinging to existing ways of doing business. When teams are allowed to pursue directions not congruent with traditional ways of accomplishing goals is when creativity flourishes.

Tip #3 – Diversify Perspective

When stakeholders from diverse disciplines, backgrounds, and areas of subject matter expertise creativity blossoms. Act on putting together cross-functional (those from across the organization) together on the next project to provide diverse perspective from their multi-vantage viewpoints.

SUMMARY

In this post we’ve taken a look at the leadership challenge of creativity. While management can be considered a regulated science, leadership often calls for an artful application to overcome project obstacles. Generating ideas from stakeholders, enabling collaboration amongst team members, and diversifying perspective can generate the creativity “spark” needed to deliver future results.

 

Sam Palazzolo

The Leadership Challenge: Recruiting like Harbaugh – 5 Tips!

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The Point: There is a war for talent taking place, with the best candidates going to those organizations that effectively outflank/outwork their business competitors in the recruiting game. So with NCAA College Football’s Signing Day finally here, we thought it would be interesting to compare/contrast The University of Michigan Football Coach Jim Harbaugh’s tactics that could leave you/your organization with a similar top recruiting class… Enjoy!

The Leadership Challenge: Recruiting like Harbaugh – 5 Tips!

Tree Climbing, Sleepovers, and Sledding… Oh My!

Jim Harbaugh’s transition from the NFL (where he acted as head coach for the San Francisco 49ers until unceremoniously being shown the exit in 2014) to the NCAA (currently acting as The University of Michigan’s Head Football Coach) has been well documented. An almost fairy-tale return to his alma mater brought about a return to glory (Full Disclosure: I’m a Michigan Man and Jim was one of the legendary Michigan quarterbacks under head coach Bo Schembechler). He is known for wearing his fiery emotions like a badge of hotheaded honor and $8 khakis he purchases from Walmart.

What Jim is perhaps not given credit for is his recruiting prowess. With an “at all costs” mentality, he has brought this football program legitimately back onto the college football scene (It’s estimated that he’ll bring in the #5 recruiting class according to ESPN this year). Some might argue that his techniques border on the strange and unorthodox (In his pursuit of players he has climbed a tree in a recruit’s backyard, had sleepovers, and offered to go sledding). Say what you will and want, but call him effective in recruiting for the following FIVE (5) reasons presented in “Tip” format for you to implement to offset the leadership challenge recruiting moments!

Tip #1 – Recruiter Energy

Let’s face reality… Your Human Resources department is probably detached from your business at hand. It’s not that they don’t know what you/your company does, it’s that they don’t KNOW what you/your company does. As such, they display a typical “play it safe” and “no skin in the game” exhibition when it comes to recruiting. If I’ve seen it once, I’ve seen this played out a hundred times.

Jim is known for his endless energy, raising the recruiting bar and setting precedents to new heights. While your recruiting efforts might not be able to change the players you have conducting the role, there should be an emphasis placed on examining how the recruiting role is changed so as to be conducted with energy.

Tip #2 – Transparent Culture

Typical recruiting tactics have taken the form of that of the applicant heretofore. Both parties want to put their “best foot” forward. However, who’s selling who in the recruiting war? Is the candidate selling the organization or vice versa? Your recruiting efforts shouldn’t shy away from your organization structure nor how you do things (and you should be profoundly proud of both as a leader!)

Tip #3 – The “Finest” of Goals

Harbaugh has gone on record as stating “We’re going to bring the finest student-athletes and character that we can to the University of Michigan.” And so it goes almost without saying that you similarly should be in pursuit of “finest” when it comes to recruiting team members mental capacity and character. Anything short of “finest” shouldn’t be pursued.

Tip #4 – Performance

While most envision the recruiting initiative done/successful once a candidate accepts an offer to join the organization, this is only the beginning for Harbaugh. There is the expectation that performance in the role recruited for not only meet, but exceed expectations. This takes thorough employee engagement and leadership feedback against a backdrop of organizational goals that the employee can immediately tie their performance back to (Your employees know what’s expected of them and can view their actual performance versus goal, right?)

Tip #5 – Expand Your Footprint

Technology has made it relatively easy to expand your geographic footprint in a search for talent. Unlike Harbaugh who has to attract student athletes to a specific geographic location (Ann Arbor, Michigan), you have the luxury of identifying best candidates without geographic boundaries (Are you fully taking advantage of A+ candidates that reside outside your geographic vicinity?)

SUMMARY

In this post, we’ve taken a look at the recruiting process/procedures of Jim Harbaugh and provided 5 Tips on how his success/focus should be yours. If there truly is a war for talent, you can’t afford for a bad recruiting effort to diminish your organizational talent. Remember, your business no matter how technical in nature you might want to believe it is, is still a people business. Having the finest people in the right roles is one of the variables of success you should consider/focus on.

Sam Palazzolo

The Leadership Challenge: Hands-On Leadership – 4 Tips!

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The Point: You have a choice as a leader… To micro or macro manage (i.e., lead) your stakeholders. But here’s the leadership challenge: In order to achieve “Super Boss” status, what’s the proper way then? In this post we’ll take a look at how being a hands-on leader is by far and away the best approach to leading along with four tips for success… Enjoy!

The Leadership Challenge: Hands-On Leadership – 4 Tips!

Hello… I’m a Disengaged Leader!

It happened again (as it had happened like a broken record every time there was a grumbling from a stakeholder)… In managing his department, Tim was provided the latitude to counsel/coach his team under the guise of “Do what you think is best” direction from his superior. However, whenever Tim did in the moment what he thought was his “best” he inevitably received the call from his disengaged leader. This call typically consisted of this disengaged leader asking the question “What did you do?” and worse yet “What did you say?”

While these questions aren’t necessarily in and of themselves bad, they would put Tim in a defensive posture. Having to explain what was done and said left him backtracking on his position. His leader without receiving all the facts typically would overthrow Tim’s authority, and in so doing cajole the stakeholders into recognizing that while the organization’s org chart had him in a leadership role, instead relegated him to an inferior status.

Being a Hands-On Leader

If Tim’s story sounds familiar to you, it should bother you. While leadership is a role best served by allowing team members to perform at their best levels, it’s more than frustrating to have episodes of the disengaged leader undercutting authority, decreasing motivation, and prompting internal thoughts/conversations regarding whether or not you as a leader are truly in the right organization.

The role of a leader is to lead from a distance, but stay in tune with activities so as to insure organizational direction is achieved. Situations often dictate that when boundaries are crossed, or direction is not as intended, that leaders engage in realignment efforts. Nothing shows greater consistency than a leader engaging in what might be seen as the mundane/not worthy day-to-day activities with a “sleeves rolled up” support system. So what should you do to be considered as a hands-on leader?

4 Tips of a Hands-On Leader

The following four (4) tips should be subscribed to in order to increase your effectiveness as a hands-on leader:

Tip #1: Set High Expectations

Become bullish on what your team can accomplish. If you’ve never pushed your team and the leaders within to achieve extraordinary high performance, the shame/blame lies squarely on your shoulders. The thought “perfect is good enough” isn’t just a mindset, it should become your mantra!

Tip #2: Be a Master

You employee smart, ambitious, and adaptable team members, right? If so, trust them to execute. If not, look to recruit/hire those that are no less than four times (4x) as smart as you are. Keep in mind that failure is inevitable, and course correction from failures should be the way you do business!

Tip #3: Encourage Step-Change Growth

Learning and growth are paramount to your people. As such, design atypical growth and development plans that allow your team to springboard forward along a steep learning curve which becomes increasingly steep as successful projects are undertaken/accomplished.

Tip #4: Stay Connected

As a leader you can count on talented people departing from you/your organization. Rip a page from the successful consultant organization model by staying connected with your former associates. Think of it as a talent “Alumni Network” that you can tap into at any given moment and you’ll be afforded the gift of future benefits.

SUMMARY

In this post we’ve taken a look at the hands-on leader as well as four tips to execute for success. Avoid becoming the disengaged leader that bares little respect as you grow yourself, your team, and your organization!

 

Sam Palazzolo

 

The Leadership Challenge: From Humility to Arrogance

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The Point: It’s been said that for a leader, it is a very short fall from success to irrelevance. Nothing fails like success, and as a leader you will find that there is a need to become more humble as you achieve success. However, where the ego crosses over the line of pride is where danger lurks! In this post, we’ll take a look at how as a leader you can achieve success while maintaining humility for both the short and long term time periods… Enjoy!

The Leadership Challenge: From Humility to Arrogance

I’m Humble… Aren’t I?

In one of my change consulting engagements, I came across a leader that was pointed towards by organizational team members as the “#1 source of discomfort in the workplace.” Now that’s no small accomplishment, after all in an organization of good size ($50M Annual Revenue and 200 team members), isn’t there a potential bounty of “discomfort” moments that could potentially occur?

Regardless of other moments, my task at hand was to explore “discomfort” validation and most importantly if change could occur in this leader to better the organization. Important bottom line organizational culture lesson to remember here: Once arrogance sets into the individual leader’s mindset, it begins to permeate and pollute the mindset of the entire team and organizational culture.

 

Is Arrogance an Earned Right?

After completing my assessment of the leader, I confirmed that there were some serious opportunities to better align him with the organization’s mission, vision, and values as displayed by his actions. However, there was one facet of his behavior that I wasn’t convinced would all for a successful change transition: The leader simply put was arrogant.

Arrogance in any setting is never a “depends” on success characteristic. While confidence can at times be an attraction technique, once the threshold of “cockiness” is breached arrogance is the net result. Typically excused as a behavior of “alpha” personalities, competencies that come with the territory of the job, or better yet what our company culture thrives on/in. Our “discomfort” leader acted the way that he did for several reasons, and perhaps the most offensive of them all was because of a self-determined reward system that had him achieving an “earned right” status.

 

Why You Should Care?

So what’s exactly at stake with the leadership challenge? And considering such toxicity for the leadership challenge, and most importantly why should one care? After all, people that behave outlandish typically achieve more (in less time it should be noted) and reap the rewards available to them for doing so (Think of the movie “Wall Street” for a reference).

If committing as a leader to long-term sustained success is your creed, than arrogance will have no business being on your GPS success route. While these minor (or major) pit-stops or off-ramp ventures seem alluring, they will shortly end up taking more and more of your time. Time that should be spent on the journey which could be spent in much more productive ways. Remember, the race isn’t necessarily won by the fastest/flashiest/most offensive!

 

SUMMARY

In this Leadership Challenge post we’ve taken a look at a leader’s behavior that can transition from humility to arrogance. Once arrogance sets into the individual leader’s mindset, it begins to permeate and pollute the mindset of the entire team and organizational culture. If long-term sustained leadership success is your goal, avoid arrogance and remain humble.

 

Sam Palazzolo