infinite pie thinking

Bob worked for Jack, but they didn’t get on very well, Jack was the Sales and Marketing Director, and Bob had just been taken on as a Marketing Manager for a small manufacturing company in the Midlands. Jack, in all fairness, didn’t like Bob because he thought he was too cocky. I suppose that Bob could be fairly annoying, but he was pretty good at his job.

The company decided that they wanted to work towards a recognised quality standard and sent a mail through the business asking for volunteers to form a team. “Ideally”, the note said, “we would like one person to represent each department.”

Bob thought this was perfect as at his previous job he had sat on a Total Quality Management team and his previous company had recently been recognised by the standards authority. Whilst he didn’t think that he knew everything there was to know about quality standards, he was fairly sure that he would be able to make a substantial contribution, and he wanted to show Jack that he was more trousers than mouth. He replied to the email volunteering for a seat on the team, and went to see Jack to lay out his proposal.

Pretty soon an email was sent out to the entire business detailing the names of those that would sit on the team and Bob was a little dismayed that his name was not on it. In fact as he scanned the page for the names of those who would make up the team, he noticed that a couple of departments were represented twice and there was no one from marketing.

Swallowing his anger he chatted idly to one or two people who were scheduled to sit on the team and was even more surprised to find out that they had been press ganged into the team by Jack. Furthermore, they didn’t see the point in this nonsense recognition and they were too busy to give it any of their time.

Bob decided to help out anyway and after talking with his two colleagues he wrote an introduction to the quality team, making specific references to each department and listing a number of issues that he thought would be good to start investigating. He illustrated the presentation with a number of models that he had used in his previous role and spent quite a bit of time putting the whole thing together. He printed copies out and bound them, put the presentation on a dozen USB sticks and mailed it to his two colleagues suggesting that they might want to present it at the first meeting. Bob felt happy with his initiative and was confident that Jack would not only see that he had something to contribute but that he deserved a permanent place on the quality team.

On the morning of the first meeting Bob made himself busy in the office by the boardroom where the quality team sat. If he was being completely honest he was waiting for someone to come out of the meeting clutching one of the print outs apologising for the error of not inviting him to join the team in the first place. Time marched on and his frustration grew, especially as he heard laughter and chatter coming through the door.

When the meeting eventually broke up and they came out Jack walked straight over to Bob and asked him about the two projects that Bob had been working on and were due at the end of the week.

Bob sullenly replied that he was a bit behind, but was confident that he would deliver on time.

“You’d be on schedule if you didn’t waste time on crap like this.” Jack said, putting Bob’s presentation in the bin at Bob’s feet before walking off.

Now ask yourself a question. Are you Bob or Jack in this scenario?

There are many times when we feel that we have something to offer and are overlooked, but what can we, in fact what should we do about it? Bob’s priorities were all over the place because his need for recognition and validation overwhelmed his passion for his day to day job. He was so caught up in proving to his unresponsive boss that he had something to add to the quality team that he neglected the day to day needs of running the business. Yes he would probably put in a handful of long days and nights to get the two projects back on track, but think about it, he is the sort of guy that would then stand at the water cooler telling everyone about how dedicated he is and how little Jack appreciated his work.

On the other hand, Jack may well be trying to recognise other people within the organisation by appointing them to the quality team, but his communication to others seems to be lacking somewhat. Ignoring the fierce put down at the end at the moment, if he had taken Bob to one side and told him that he recognised the potential for Bob’s involvement but that the two projects he was working on were a priority they would both have reached an understanding. As it is collaboration wasn’t possible because of the secret compromise that Bob had worked towards. Also consider who else within the organisation felt equally as passionate about joining the team.

Good Leadership is about understanding where the business is and where it is going, but equally important it is about communicating that to the organisation as a whole and to individuals. Recognition works in two ways, it can be used to encourage individuals within your team, but just as powerful is an absence of recognition which will deflate anybody’s self worth.

Leadership and Communication are intrinsically linked, you simply cannot have one without the other. 

MD

infinite pie

It's not a habit that we want to get in to, however, this blog from the Harvard Business Review is exactly the sort of thing that we are trying to promote. Here a very respected leader and entrepreneur found himself in a relatively common predicament. Having enjoyed success for a number of years experienced a seismic shift in his business life the author goes through how he addressed the change in needs and the actions that he took. Great reading, I would be fascinated to hear your comments on how you have faced similar.

Enjoy

"What the Heck Is Wrong With My Leadership?"

10:00 AM Monday January 23, 2012 
by Pekka A. Viljakainen

In 1998, I sold part of my company (which I had founded in 1986, when I was 13) to the Finnish IT services firm Tieto. Two years later we made it a full merger, and I joined the Tieto management team.

I was used to managing 200 Finnish nerds, with whom my straight-ahead approach (my nickname is "Bulldozer") got great results. But Tieto was growing rapidly and going global. Before long I was managing thousands of nerds in Russia, China, Germany, the U.S., and other countries. And it wasn't working. Tieto gave managers a leadership score (formal name: Leadership Index/VCC Value Creation Capital) every year, based on surveys of the people who worked for and with them. The best score was 100; I had started out, in 1998, in the 90s. By 2002, I was down to 54. A year later, not long after Tieto's leadership (myself included) decided that anyone with a leadership score under 25 should be fired, I got a 27.

It was a true leadership nightmare. Despite my years of experience, monetary success, and the fact that I had not changed a thing in my daily executive routine, I was lost. To figure out what had gone wrong, I traveled around the world and met with my employees, usually in hotel meeting rooms. "What the heck is wrong with my leadership?" I asked them. The answers varied a lot between countries. With people in China, whatever I asked, they said, "Yes sir." But there were some common themes:

1. Influence. They said they expected to have influence on company leadership. They wanted somebody who owns the game, but they wanted influence, too.

2. Equality. They really expected that everybody in the company would be treated equally. Of course there will be salary differences, but the way people have impact should be same everywhere — and the opportunity to share in the value of that impact should be the same, too.

3. Understanding. One thing they said that was surprising to me was that they expected the board to be really on the ball as to what was going on in the company. They couldn't understand how somebody could decide on a strategy without knowing specifically what to do.

So I changed how I did things. I began to arrange company events and announcements to be made in Beijing or Moscow, with headquarters in Helsinki joining in only later. I changed my time allocation to spend 80% of my time on the front line with customers and employees. It was not very environmentally friendly, because I was living 260 days a year in a jet.

I also started actively, some would say overactively, using digital videos, webcasts, and an internal blog to make sure everybody around the world knew what I was doing, and to get feedback. My blog was called Bulldozer's Blog. I had a policy of posting everything that I had that was related to the business on it, as soon as I had it. Not pending contracts or other things that had to remain secret, but when I was working on draft presentation I was putting it in the blog.

Bulldozer's Blog was not about broadcasting information. It became more like a Wiki than a blog. Other people in the company began commenting on it, adding additional materials. Five thousand colleagues per week were downloading material from it. They were not going because it was mandatory, but because they saw the value. The interaction was the most valuable part of it. Also, the mistakes. Everybody loves to see mistakes, especially when a leader makes public mistakes. If there are no mistakes, no failures, it doesn't work. It's not social media.

When I retired from the company in 2010, my leadership score was back above 90. More importantly, I had learned that leading a global team of what I call "digital cowboys" is not about command and control but about listening and communicating — and about learning, which I am still trying to do.

This post is part of the HBR Insight Center, The Next Generation of Global Leaders.

MD

infinite pie

It is truly amazing to watch a team form and attack a problem that is far removed from their normal day to day activity. The team will probably try to tackle issues using their normal tool kit, and if that fails as can happen in novel situations, the failure of the established way of working can on occasion make room for creativity to blossom; assumptions can be stripped away and good old fashioned problem solving occurs.

What is truly awe inspiring however is to watch this process being driven by a group of people  who have little or no ego, no concerns about whether they are the most important person in the group or how they are perceived by their colleagues or those outside of the team. In the rare instances you might find yourself observing such a team it can be truly inspirational.

I was honoured to be invited to Plymouth University this week to take part in ‘Chemistry Flux 2012’ which involved teams of students faced with the task of setting up a business and business planning in chemistry or chemical engineering

Every participant was in the second year of studying for their chemistry degree, rather than a business or marketing degree. They were given one of four briefs at nine in the morning, and had to form a plan, come up with a number of questions for a panel of experts and then make a pitch for investment in the style of Dragons Den, all before three that afternoon.

The team work displayed was frankly humbling; they easily divided jobs according to talent and knowledge and then gave each other the space to function within their allotted role.

The winning team created a measured and measurable business plan that we all found not only ambitious but realistic and well thought through.

It is surprising where you can find inspiration, but a good place to start would be here

MD

infinite pie

When you plan a veggie patch, you will consider the type and amount of space required and how to arrange it effectively etc and ensure we plant the seeds at the right time (you can’t cram for a bumper harvest like you can cram for an exam ie the night before the test).  By beginning with the end in mind, or setting a desired outcome, you will take action and constantly review and enjoy the journey and process with no guarantee of the end result.  The outcome/outputs will often depend on the quality of the inputs.

AF

infinite pie