Every great initiative faces a similar challenge: The very things that make it worthwhile also create a temptation to rush the strategies that will make it successful. Plans can become big and complex and, ultimately, overwhelming and impractical. It’s like trying to boil the ocean. You just can’t do it. And the same goes for Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) initiatives. There’s a tremendous desire to see the big-vision outcomes, so we can rush the strategies and end up defeating our own agenda.

This post was originally written by Mike Thompson for ALPFA Institute.

As our business grows, I’m often evaluating myself as a leader of SVI. That process involves looking at examples of other leaders: Should I be more authoritative like Lou Gerstner, IBM’s past CEO? Should I be more like Indra Nooyi, the very compassionate CEO of PepsiCo? Should I be more like authors Mark Sanborn, who is a great analytical thinker and teacher, or Tommy Spaulding, who has such a strong passion for relationships? Or should I be a creative thought leader like Seth Godin?

I also look at leaders I admire in my local area such as David Roth, the president of Work Matters; John Roberts, the CEO of J.B. Hunt; and Donnie Smith, the CEO of Tyson Foods.

But what I’ve come to realize over the years is that I can never be those leaders. I can only be me. So I borrow something (or multiple things) from every one of them and apply it in my leadership at SVI. For me to be most effective, I’ve got to lead in my own skin even if I lead with the “flavor” of others.

Someone who really inspires me here is Richard Branson, founder of the mega brand Virgin and its 300 companies. I’ve read several of his books and I’m now reading his latest one. He’s a brilliant knucklehead who takes things too far … and it works for him. He leads in his own skin. I relate to his sense of adventure and to his eclectic style.

Join me in learning to lead in your own skin this year. To begin, consider these things:

1. Look to the example of others for leadership flavor, not for your leadership foundation.
2. Don’t be apologetic for your unique style if it doesn’t fit the cookie-cutter leadership models – brilliance comes from uniqueness.
3. Maintain the right motives – don’t be irresponsible or self-absorbed with your leadership style. Google “Chainsaw Al” to see an example of someone’s style operating under the wrong motives.

Finally, there is one behavior we can all share in our leadership for 2012. Be optimistic. I believe 2012 is going to be an amazing year and you should be a champion of it.

Onward!

When the ancient Greeks faced calamities that had no identifiable cause, they attributed them to Tyche, the goddess of luck. That flood? Blame it on Tyche. The drought? Tyche. As one scholar put it, “the blind mistress of Fortune governed mankind with an inconstancy which explained the vicissitudes of the time.” Sounds like the goddess of misfortune, but she also occasionally saved a city or pushed fate in some other positive direction.

I’ve always struggled with the idea of luck – or fortune or fate or whatever word you personally prefer to describe positive or negative events that seem like they happened by chance. Blame it on my theological world view. If something is really out of my control, why wish for it or worry over it? When good things happen that are out of my control, I’m thankful. When they don’t, I’m not bitter.

Regardless of their worldviews, champions are the same way – they don’t bank on luck. They are thankful for their good fortune. But when things go bad, they don’t lash out. They take responsibility for their bad position or challenging circumstances, and they try to learn from them. They might pray for relief, but they also work toward that relief. Hope and faith strengthen their resolve and their outlook, but they realize the results are often out of their control. And that run of adversity that feels like the bad breath of Tyche might actually be the crucible that leads to a greater blessing.

Are you banking on luck, thereby giving little or no effort? I hope not. Do you have faith and hope? I hope so. Luck requires no action. Hope and faith require extensive action. The actions of a champion are necessary to push through life’s challenges, even when good outcomes aren’t entirely visible. Champions develop the necessary perseverance and resiliency to push forward despite the setbacks seemingly brought about by “bad luck.”

Is the pursuit of a significant life getting in the way of being productive? A recent blog post on HBR.org by Umair Haque provided another reminder of the importance of pursuing a life of significance. It even provided some helpful tips to achieve that. But as I read it, I wondered if such pursuits get in the way of my productivity at work. Can I have both? Can I achieve significance and be productive? Can I keep my eyes toward the stars while logging my time? Can I dissect the monthly financial reports while contemplating our company’s vision?

Yes.

But to do so, we need to consider productive activity and significant pursuits on a continuum. Let’s put productive actions on the left side of the continuum and significant pursuits on the right. Place a mark somewhere on the continuum that represents where you typically operate for each principle.

1. I follow societal order. I oftentimes dissent.
2. I instill policy. I operate on principles.
3. I sacrifice desire. I embrace desire.
4. I’m goal oriented. I sell out to a compelling vision.
5. I guard my emotions. I unleash my emotions.
6. I’m defined by my role. I’m defined by my impact.
7. I present myself well. I show my authentic self.
8. I don’t take things personally. I make things personal.
9. I work to achieve power. I work to grow.
10. I love building teams. I love building individuals.
11. I execute the work. I inspire change.
12. I effectively navigate through the known. I effectively navigate through the unknown.
13. I strive for balance. I manage life imbalance.
14. I strive to live safe and secure. My passion pushes me closer to the edge.
15. I manage the outputs. I manage the outcomes.

Are you more skewed to the productive life or the significant life? I hope your continuum doesn’t always line up on either extreme. The key is to have your marks move across each continuum at certain times. Sometimes you should follow societal order, but not always. Change often calls for challenging our sacred tenets. Always pursuing our desires would be counterproductive. But never pursuing them leaves us stale and boring, not inspiring. So I hope your marks are at various places on each of these lines. And I hope the next time you take this simple assessment, your marks have changed locations. Don’t always be on one side or the other. To be productive and achieve significance, you should move back and forth along each of the continuums at various times in your life.

Onward!

Several weeks ago I posted my status on Facebook as, “Reinventing today. This process always starts with confusion.”

The reinvention reference was related to SVI’s growth. As an organization, we knew who we were, what we were good at, what we had accomplished, and we knew, strategically at least, where we were going.

My confusion came from, how we were going to pursue our strategy? Although I was confident in our strategy, I was confused about how to best execute it.

What exactly should we do operationally?

What do we change?

What do we keep doing the same?

Since that time, we’ve restructured a significant part of our organization – new people and old people in new places – behind the same strategy and vision that was cast almost two years ago.

There is some anxiety around this new structure and these new operations. But when I think about the motives behind some of the structural and operational shifts, I gain a great deal of peace and confidence in our decisions.

I was motivated to encourage these shifts because I could answer “yes” to the following questions.

1. Are we good at what we do and do we deserve to be in this game?
2. Are the people at SVI here because they are committed to the mission and vision of SVI beyond the paycheck?
3. Are we capable of attracting the right people and making the right hires to move aggressively toward our vision?
4. Is our leadership team completely aligned behind our direction?
5. Can we better align our people to necessary roles that fit their skills and desires better?

Are you finding yourself on the cusp of reinvention and wondering if you should pull the trigger in order to better pursue your strategic vision? If you can answer “yes” to the questions above, then move forward with confidence. If you can’t, then work on getting your organization to the “yes” answer to these questions before you take on a significant reinvention process.

Dear novice OD consultant,

If I had but one piece of advice to give to you, it would be this: Develop your Awesome Filter.

You already know the cornerstones to being successful in the Organization Development industry. Clients expect you to be smarter than them, faster than them, and (sometimes) cheaper than them. Make sure that they see the best you have to offer, always, and don’t skimp on the little things…

Wear a suit. Use big words. Smile. A lot.

… but if you want to make a name for yourself, my little Thought Leader of Tomorrow, you need to invest the time into sorting all of that smart, speedy content through your very own Awesome Filter.

In short: ask yourself, “Is this awesome or not?”

Because, yes, they pay for smart and they pay for speed… but what they want is a nice slice of awesome.
-TBK

Awesome links to awesome stuff being done awesomely:
TED Talks



My Hero



Sweet Ride

Stay tuned for “HOW TO develop your awesome filter” and add the RSS feed to your reader

“Successful” people fail a whole lot more than they succeed. In fact, many claim that failure is necessary for success – Thomas Edison, anyone. In the past three days alone, I’ve failed to rectify a broken relationship, I’ve been called out by a good friend for my actions, and I was too aggressive and vocal in an important conversation that should have been much more collaborative.

Like you, I hate when I blow it. When I experience those failures, I really just want to crawl into a hole and disengage from society. Such a move, however, would be unhealthy emotionally, and completely unproductive.

So, how do you move beyond failure and not be defined by it? Below are a few tips to consider.

1. Don’t be defined by failure: Failure is circumstantial and situational. Failure is not a defining characteristic of who you are. People who are personally grounded, who operate under a strong set of values and live with a passion and a purpose more easily overcome failure because they aren’t defined by it. They are defined by something much bigger – their core, their soul.
2. Be vulnerable and own it: Be quick to admit the mistake. When you’re quick to acknowledge your failure, you can more quickly move beyond it. It’s so easy and natural to be protective and defensive. Try countering that natural tendency by doing just the opposite – being vulnerable and transparent.
3. Develop greater passion and resilience coming out of it: Your passion is your personal spark. Rally behind your spark. When you’re feeling down and sorry for yourself, the vibe that you’re giving off to others is a defeatist vibe. Sure, allow yourself some time to sulk. But not too long. At some point, use the failure to ignite your spark and develop greater resolve behind your passion. How you recover is what other people should remember you for, not for your failure. Even more, when you intentionally work to ignite your spark, you personally move beyond failure more quickly.
4. Consider, reflect on, and embrace this quote by Theodore Roosevelt: “Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure… than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.”

These tips helped me get over my recent failures. Being defined by my values and my purpose instead of my failure helped me get back up after I had been knocked down, emotionally. Admitting my mistakes helped bring closure to my failure. After all, what more was there to say – it had all been said. Only then could I move forward. Because of my failure, I found myself adopting a new resolve and new energy to be better the next time. But even in my failure, I was thankful for learning something, being alive in the daily battles, and being tested – because those battles and tests are the things that ignite new growth.

Everyone fails. But the most extraordinary people accept their failure and grow stronger out of it. And because of it, they experience newer and greater triumphs. How you have handled failure in the past?

Can a leader who protects their vulnerability be effective? Strong leadership requires that people feel comfortable communicating their concerns, their needs, their aspirations and where they need to grow. How well can others be led by a leader who has armor on? The fact is that many of the most powerful leaders have gone through challenging life experiences that helped them grow dramatically. Those experiences hold important lessons that others can learn from and be encouraged by.

My own story started as the loser kid growing up…with bad grades, fights, and often alone on the playground. At an early age, I was beginning to accept my inevitable lifelong journey through Loserville. But something happened my junior year in high school. I learned the game of acting like everyone else acts. Just mimic those people who you want to become so badly. So I joined a sport, improved my appearance and painted on a confident smile day in and day out.

And it worked…really well.

It worked well in my professional life also. But there was a consequence to all of this “acting”. Faking everyone out and hiding behind a false image was hard and tiring work. Unauthentic living was down right exhausting. That exhaustion finally caught up with me. I was completely out of gas and started showing physical signs from the stress including anxiety and high blood pressure.

My body was telling me that I couldn’t play the game anymore. It told me that I had to learn to be who I was, and to truly accept myself. I had to stop the performance and live genuinely.

This was a scary growth process for me, because I knew who I was when I wasn’t performing. I was alone and unaccepted. My transition to authenticity meant that I had to embrace my inner ragamuffin nature. I would have to be ok with myself and gain a sense of personal value and worth even when I felt inadequate. I started to let people in to my life more – my authentic life, not my “presentation” life. I’m more open with my fears. I don’t pretend to have all the answers anymore. I could go on here, but hopefully you get the point.

So how has this whole new vulnerability / transparency thing worked out? I have a better perspective of life – knowing that I’m not really that big of a deal… and, thank God, I don’t have to be. I don’t feel quite as much pressure as I once did. I learned to empathize with others more and I’m more interested in them than I used to be. I am more engaged with life, feeling more and bigger emotions. I have more joy and I’m less anxious about things.

As leaders, we often live with intense pressure. Eventually that pressure will bubble up and explode – maybe causing a personal collapse. Trust from others is so important for leaders. And people trust leaders who are authentic. Those who lead from a guarded state will be exposed and eventually trust will fall.

To grow as leaders, we need to learn to be more vulnerable and authentic. As we are more authentic, we also direct our energies in productive ways as opposed to putting a drain on ourselves trying to keep up a front. The more authentic we are and the more we are willing to let others see our humanity, the greater trust we build. It also allows us to truly impact others so that they can learn from our mistakes and life lessons and become future leaders.

Also, check out this video from TED featuring Brene Brown. She has some very valuable words of wisdom that support this idea. I hope your journey toward authenticity is a valuable one. Onward!

I’ve had the dubious privilege of traveling through several airports at the peak of massive weather developments this past month. When bad weather strikes across the country, airports are really the last place you want to be. Why? Because it’s here that any societal progress we’ve made, post Neanderthal days, is completely lost. During these times, it seems that the preferred way of communicating between passenger and gate agent is grunting.

I couldn’t help but wonder…are these airline gate agents open to the ways of emotional intelligence? And what kind of new world might be possible if we all developed more of that EI?

So, in recognition of the snowmageddon, snowpocalypse and gate agents united around the world, consider these tips to improve your relational aptitude. If you’re not a gate agent, read on. I saw several passengers revert to Neanderthal days as well.

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Scenario #1: The gate agent I was working with wanted to share with me how horrible her day was in comparison to mine. She showed me no empathy, but demanded it from me.

Tip #1: Listen closely to others. Listen with your eyes, heart and ears. Observe body language, the cadence and tone of voice of others. Try to identify the emotions behind the message. Don’t judge others as you listen.

Scenario #2: The gate agent didn’t allow me to express my concern. She had no idea what my pain points where because she didn’t give me any say, but rather, kept shutting me off.

Tip #2: Allow others their moment. Don’t interrupt, dismiss their concerns, change the subject, or charge in with unsolicited advice.

Scenario #3: The gate agent talked to me for over 10 minutes and never looked me in the eyes – not once. She was completely consumed by her computer monitor.

Tip #3: Take a personal interest in people. Demonstrate genuine curiosity about their lives. Ask about family, hobbies, viewpoints, challenges and aspirations. Make an effort to get to know those people you’re interacting with beyond just the transaction.

Scenario #4: What I would have done for a simple acknowledgment, “Mr. Thompson, I hear you.”

Tip #4: Address others by name. Remember to call people by name when interacting with them.

Scenario #5: The gate agent was easily distracted and overwhelmed. And she made sure I felt it by her tone and by the 10 other conversations she had going on at the same time. I was at her complete mercy as to when our conversation would continue.

Tip #5: Be fully present when you are with others. This means that email and the phone will have to wait until the conversation is over. Also, use appropriate non-verbal signals to show that you’re making a connection to the other person. Do not check your watch, make fleeing movements, or indulge interruptions. If you truly need to end the conversation, suggest a specific time when you can resume the conversation. If you must allow an interruption, acknowledge the person you were first speaking with and resume the conversation promptly.

Scenario #6: When progress was made, I complimented the gate agent’s actions. I felt better. I’m not sure she did.

Tip#6: Recognize and give praise in an authentic way. When you pay better attention to what other people are doing, you’ll likely catch them doing something good. Let them know you noticed.

Scenario #7: I didn’t stop with just compliments, however. I wanted progress to continue. So, I gave more encouragement for what I felt were good and helpful decisions.

Tip#7: Offer encouragement to others. Use subtle signals like a head nod or more overt actions like agreeing verbally to boost confidence in others.

Scenario #8: I felt the pain of my gate agent. I don’t think she ever felt my pain of being on a surprise overnight in LA with no luggage and a late arrival to an important meeting.

Tip #8: Ask yourself what the other person might be feeling or experiencing. This is the one that I wish the gate agents could master. Empathize with the other person’s emotions, don’t project yours onto them.

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I know that the logistics of managing inbound and outbound flights with frustrated passengers can be extremely difficult. I also know how chaotic airport terminals can get. But next time you find yourself in a tense situation with another person, try implementing these tips. You might find yourself moving productively to a better outcome.

*Tips were created by SVI’s own Lisa Iles – Instructional Designer☺.

It feels good to get re-engaged with society. Over the past six months, I’ve been working on a new book titled, The Anywhere Leader, which will be released by Jossey-Bass this summer.

During those six months, I’ve missed out on a lot of things – including the updating of this blog. I think the time away has been a valuable sacrifice, however, because I’ve really enjoyed gaining an understanding of what makes leaders successful no matter where they land, and understanding how these leaders succeed even in the most uncertain and unstable conditions.

The premise of The Anywhere Leader is to acknowledge the difficulty of leading in a complex global business environment with tough new rules and constant disruption – an environment where people are often misplaced, replaced and displaced. The Anywhere Leader helps readers lead effectively through such uncertainty and instability.

SVI’s thought leadership team set out to discover these Anywhere Leaders: who they are, what makes them an Anywhere Leader, and how you can become one. Through our research, we discovered three core traits of an Anywhere Leader. These leaders are:

• Driven by progress, not politics.
• Sensationally curious, asking the right questions.
• Vastly resourceful, able to do a lot with very little.

There is a lot to unpack in these traits and the leadership strengths that accompany them – a whole book’s worth. I look forward to discussing The Anywhere Leader concept with you in great depth in the coming year.

Look for The Anywhere Leader website coming soon. In the meantime, join the conversation around The Anywhere Leader by following @anywhereleader on Twitter.

Onward!