Category: Leadership

By Scott

The 5 Levels of Followership

A recent blog posting from Kate Nasser got me thinking.  She made the case that the opposite of leader is not follower.  Here is her post.

I agree with her, but struggle with a word that captures how people work AND facilitates a discussion that allows a leader and follower to share their perception of performance.  I propose the 5 levels, with Kate’s term being level 5.  Yes, I did borrow the concept from Jim Collins, but these are my words.  So here are the Five levels of Followership.

  1. Minimizer   – An individual that consumes oxygen in the workplace.  They are present, but getting things done is not a priority.  They measure their contribution by getting just enough done to stay employed.
  2. Doer – Do what they are asked consistently and with very little negative emotion.  Solid and very dependable.  Measure their contribution by getting done what is asked by when it was asked.
  3. Attractor – Do their job with joy, attracting customers both inside and outside of their organization.  Measure their contribution by the smiles they receive back and the work they get done.
  4. Improver – Does the work presented and looks for ways to improve the efficiency.  Measure their contribution by the dollars/time that they save or the improvements they make in the lives of their customers.
  5. Influencer – Someone who sees opportunities to alter strategies or activities that will have a big impact on the direction of the organization and the work that is being done.  Measure their contribution by the big things they get started and the opportunities they have to engage in work they consider to be significant.

It is always a great conversation to ask people how they perceive their contribution, then compare that with what you see.  Gaps drive more conversations.  Perpetual gaps indicate outcomes of conversations need to be written down.  Words and labels do matter, but great conversations matter more.

By Scott

Leadership from #Ford: Remember your roots . . Look to the future

As we looked out over the Ford complex they affectionately call The Rouge, my daughter said “It is really cool how they are committed to the environment and creating such a nice place to work”.  My comment back was “Yeah, but remember how dirty and polluted this place used to be.  They ruined air and water for a long time.”  Her response, “But it looks good today.”

We toured the Ford complex in Detroit where they make the F-150 truck, and there is a lots there to talk about.  Ford does a great job sharing the real history (including beating of union organizers) and painting a vision for why this facility means so much to the company and the people.  It is also amazing to watch people build a great product in an extremely clean and nice environment.  Worth the time if you are in Detroit. We live in a knowledge economy, but I still get the chills watching people assembling a physical product.

My big take-away from the tour is how both my daughter and I heard the same message, saw the same things, but initially had a different perspective.  I wanted to make sure she saw the past and she wanted me to see the present and future.  Who is right?

Knowing and acknowledging the past is important.  George Santayana once said Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.  It provides context for decisions today and gives us a strong Why for current direction.  People need leaders willing to talk about history.

Living the in past is a problem.  Constantly reminding people of past sins as a form of punishment or reason for not believing in a future vision is being a bad follower.

Leaders, acknowledge the past and challenge yourself and others not to live in it.  Followers – ditto.  Many thanks to my daughter for reminding me of that.

By Scott Patchin

Rotten Apple or Rotten Barrel?

A friend shared the following question:

When someone is not performing well, is it because they are a rotten apple or do they work in a rotten barrel?

I have a couple of core beliefs about people:

  1. Everyone has a place where they can be great and have a huge impact on the world around them.
  2. Not everyone is ready or able to have an impact in their current place (barriers are real and do happen – low self esteem, addiction, too much life happening at once, etc.).
  3. Huge Impact takes combination of talents, passions, and rewards (being fed by your work).
  4. Huge Impact does not come solely through a career/job.

Sticking with my friends terminology . . . A rotten apple is someone in a place where they are asked to perform at a level that is beyond them at this time.  Lots of reasons (see #2 above) and it is easy to slap a label on them.  I struggle with the term rotten apple.  I prefer to describe and treat them as a good person in a tough spot.

I challenge followers to always be working on awareness of self, have the courage to share it with their leaders, and to remember their ownership of performance.  Some times it is too easy to slip into the rotten barrel excuse.

I challenge leaders to ask the question of themselves, Is this a rotten apple or have I created a rotten barrel?  It is a difficult question to ask,  but if you want your people to ask themselves the rotten apple question, then you need to go first.

By Scott

Lessons in Leadership: Chris Ilitch

Recently I had the opportunity to see Chris Ilitch speak about the Little Caesars culture and success. He is the son of the founder, Mike Ilitch. Some basics on this organization is that it is a privately held $4.2B company that derives income from 11 different organizations that includes pro sports (Tigers and Red Wings), pizza (Little Caesars), food distribution, entertainment, and gambling.

Here are the key values/beliefs that he titled – Secrets to the Sauce.

  1. Think Big / Set Goals
  2. Creativity and Innovation (remember Pizza Pizza? They started that craze)
  3. Courage and Risk Taking
  4. Perseverance and Commitment (“Not all risks pay off. Mistakes will happen.”)
  5. Humility and Character (“Don’t get to high. Don’t get to low.” “If you do something good people will find out about it.”
  6. People and Giving Back

Every speaker leaves you with something.  For me, the thing I took away was how long it took to build this organization and how diverse it has become.  The first store opened in 1961, the 100th in 1988, and the 2000th in 1989.  Overnight success?  Hardly.  Now their businesses go way beyond pizza, and yet what has not changed is a commitment to a struggling city (Detroit) and a state where it all started.  Chris ended the presentation with that reminder that their key has been to define what is important to them(this list) and then stick with it.

No family or business is perfect, and I am sure the Ilitchs are no different.  It is a great story and Chris Illitch does a great job telling it.

By Scott Patchin

Don’t Be Mean – Part Two . . the 5 step solution for leaders

I am a big fan of Mary Jo Asmus of Aspire Collaborative Services.  She is a great coach and passionate about developing leaders that make a difference.  She is also thoughtful and nice.  The kind of person you trust as soon as you meet. 

I had the privilege of doing a two guest posts on her blog around leadership development and coaching. 

Here is the link to the second part of the post: 

I am a big fan of Mary Jo Asmus of Aspire Collaborative Services.  She is a great coach and passionate about developing leaders that make a difference.  She is also thoughtful and nice.  The kind of person you trust as soon as you meet.  I had the privilege of doing a guest post on her blog around leadership development and coaching. 

Here is the link to Part 2 of the post.  http://www.aspire-cs.com/don%e2%80%99t-be-mean-part-2

If you missed it, here is the link to Part 1 of the post.  http://www.aspire-cs.com/don%e2%80%99t-be-mean-part-one?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

By Scott Patchin

Don’t Be Mean – Part One

I am a big fan of Mary Jo Asmus of Aspire Collaborative Services.  She is a great coach and passionate about developing leaders that make a difference.  She is also thoughtful and nice.  The kind of person you trust as soon as you meet.  I had the privilege of doing a guest post on her blog around leadership development and coaching.  Here is the first part of the post.  http://www.aspire-cs.com/don%e2%80%99t-be-mean-part-one?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

By Scott Patchin

Resilience – What we can learn from the military

Chief of Staff of the Army, Gen. George W. Cas...
Image via Wikipedia

Do any of us in the private sector experience any more stress than a soldier in battle?  We all know the answer.  No.  Which is why it is worth taking 300 words to explore an effort to help soldiers build their resilience.

Resilience is the word of the year for the discussion around assisting people to manage through a stressful business environment.  I found a great clinical discussion in the Harvard Business Review around resilience (link).  I like clinical approaches to topics because they provide great information about what works, what doesn’t, and an outline of the critical steps/pieces of a solution.  They learn and I apply.

Here are the key pieces of the Comprehensive Soldier Fitness (CSF) program.

  1. Test for psychological fitness – Identify strengths in four areas:  emotional, family, social, and spiritual fitness.  All four have been found to reduce depression and anxiety.
  2. Learning – A mandatory course on post-traumatic growth and optional on-line classes on the four fitness areas.  Mandatory class covers five areas: Understanding a normal response to trauma, learning techniques for controlling intrusive thoughts/images, how to talk about it, see the trauma as a fork in the road, and transforming the trauma into new/reinforced principles of life.
  3. Train key leaders – Called Master Resiliency Training (MRT), the goal is to teach them how to embrace resilience and pass on the knowledge.  This last piece focuses on:  Building mental toughness, Building on our signature strengths, and Building relationships. 

I am not sure where this study will go, but when 900,000 people go through something and someone is measuring the outcomes and sharing the learning it should have a lasting benefit.

How can we apply this today? What do you see from their approach that reinforces how you lead today?  How you coach or mentor?  How you can create your own CSF program? How does your own awarness of self make you more resilient?  or less . . . . .

On a side note: I am glad someone is looking out for the health of our soldiers.

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By Scott Patchin

Want to develop as a leader? Focus on these three adjectives

Leadership is not easy.  It does not get any easier by the endless number of competency models, development programs, books, blogs, and opinions that seem to get thrown at new leaders.  In case you were wondering, I don’t have an answer on a sure fire way to become a great leader in the next 300 words.

What I offer is a solution to something I see in leaders at all levels, and that is an incredible talent for getting work done but a struggle building relationships with peers and their team.  Here are three adjectives that should be part of the selection and development of any leader.  If people are willing to use these words to describe a leader then they are  doing something right.

  • Transparent – What are your priorities?  What are you worried about?  Often the speed at which you are operating and the dozens of things you are dealing with at any one time make it hard for people to know what you are thinking. 
  • Consistent – Respect comes before like for leaders.  Do people know what to expect from you around vacations?  Lunch breaks?  Professional development requests?  Deadlines?  Personal calls?  Celebrations?
  • Authentic – Regular people laugh, cry, have bad hair days, and sometimes have to say they are sorry for something they did or said.  Leadership models too often paint a picture of someone who sounds more like Superman or Wonder Woman.  Leaders do all the things regular people do – with a balance of providing strength, energy, and passion for an effort.  This one is probably the toughest.

So what do these adjectives look like in practice?  Here are a few tips:

  • When taking over a new team, take time to find out what they do and don’t pretend to have all the answers.  (authentic, transparent)
  • Develop standard events around communication, performance discussions, follow-up to questions/issues, and celebrating special events. (consistent)
  • Get to know the outside lives of your people and let them get to know yours. (transparent)

There are many more, but hopefully this starts the discussion.  Feel free to share some important things that I might have missed.  I don’t know everything. (transparent, authentic)  🙂

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By Scott Patchin

Secret Sauce for Performance – Knowing What Matters to Your People. A story . . .

Movie or concert tickets symbol
Image via Wikipedia

A friend recently told me a great story.  As part of a performance evaluation for one of his people who had worked hard this past year he gave all the things he was expected to provide – feedback in the form of an evaluation and a wage increase.  But for this employee, he also handed tickets to a concert for he and his wife.  The source of this gift was a conversation a couple of months earlier when it was shared that his wife loved this artist, but they could not justify the cost at that time.  This third piece brought forth a response of passion and gratitude that way exceeded the response to the first two rewards.  My friend hit the secret sauce of performance – knowing your people and giving them something REALLY special when they deserve it.

One question I love to ask people is What rewards mean the most to you?  Too often Management 101 discussions neglect to tell the new leader that money is not a motivator.  If that is not understood then you only have to sit in a room with 10 of your people and have someone like me ask that question.  Money will be mentioned, but it is not at the top of the list. 

Great rewards go deeper than just the standard list.  The ability to connect family members, hobbies, or passions outside of work allows you to do two things:

  1. Show that you care about them as a person.
  2. Speak to other significant people in their lives with a message that you/your company cares.  These friends/spouses are the people who encourage them after a day when maybe you are not so great a leader (we all have those days).  They will also tell the story to other great people who might be looking to work for a great company/leader.  The textbooks call these two things retention and attraction – and they are pretty important.

Interested in being this kind of leader?  Here are two moves you can make:

  1. Keep a file with everyone’s name and their answer to the question What rewards mean the most to you?
  2. Keep notes in your file anytime they say I love to  _________ or We would really like to see/go to _____________.

Then you just have to follow through when they do something great – but that is the easy part.

By Scott Patchin

Lessons in Leadership – Learning delegation from a child

Last night my youngest daughter delivered these faithful words at 2am – “Daddy, my tummy hurts.”  I turned on the light and asked her “Tell me about the hurt?”  Her response was pretty simple “I think I am going to get sick.  I need to go to the bathroom.”  My response “Go ahead.”  I will spare you the details of the next 20 minutes, but I judge the endings of these things based on how much work I end up having to do.  In this case, I was just needed for comfort.  Whew.

As I think about that event today, I realized that my daughter is growing up.  She got up when she felt bad, came to tell me, and with very little help from me other than a slight nudge, she took care of herself.  We have raised a child that is showing signs of maturity and independence.  It feels good.

One of the big challenges of leaders is growing individuals and teams that show that kind of independence.  I have always been struck by all the different ways people have created to measure the effectiveness of a leader.   Too often we depend on a test or a psychologist to measure how well individuals and teams are developing into independent thinkers. 

Here is a simple one to measure how independent your team is today.  Take a piece of paper and every time someone on your team comes to you with a need for help today make a mark.  If they bring the answer or you are able to get them to provide their own answer, circle that mark.   At the end of the day what does the sheet say about your leadership style and their ability to solve their own problems?

Your development plan – more marks with circles tomorrow because you ask what they think the answer is more often. 

When they leave with their own answer, you are becoming a developer of people . . and a leader.  Trust me, it will feel good.