Learning Leadership

Rebuilding Confidence in Business: A Practical Approach

Today's post is a guest post by Mary C. Gentile, author of the book, Giving Voice to Values: How to Speak Your Mind When You Know What's Right. 

Rebuilding Confidence in Business: A Practical Approach

Recent events have contributed to an ever-growing cynicism and even a sense of futility about the values and ethics of global business institutions. We have seen, for example, the creation and marketing of investment vehicles allegedly designed to fail, so that those in the know could short them; the knowing disregard of credit-worthiness requirements by banks and mortgage brokers; the practice of “cooking the books” over long time periods until seemingly solid and successful businesses collapse under the weight of their own false information, and the prioritizing the importance of time and financial pressures over safety requirements in the mining and extractive industries.

The costs of such transgressions are not only financial, human and environmental devastation; they contribute to a crisis of faith in the marketplace that paradoxically makes it even more difficult to fix what ails us. The more business leaders and employees believe that the system is corrupt, the less likely they are to feel empowered or motivated to behave differently. Research and experience suggest that among the most prevalent reasons for the failure of individuals to address problems in the workplace are a fear of retaliation, a sense that they are alone with their concerns and the belief that their efforts will be ignored anyway.¹

So what’s a business leader to do, particularly when it comes to values and ethics? This can be a daunting challenge particularly because the received wisdom is that everything “starts at the top.”

The recognition that management is not a solo performance and that values-driven leadership behaviors are not only possible but required from any and every seat in the house suggests the need for a much more pragmatic, action-oriented approach to business ethics than the one that is usually undertaken. The typical best practices involve setting and communicating a mission statement and corporate values; external and internal statements from the CEO and senior leaders of the organization; employee training on the relevant laws, regulations and corporate policies, often illustrated by case examples; and a set of consequences – positive incentives as well as the threat of punishment – established to support the rules. It is, indeed, a very top-down approach but setting and communicating rules is not necessarily the same as creating a culture that encourages, enables and welcomes the voicing of values.

In fact, the typical approaches to ethics and compliance, although necessary, are not sufficient to counter the sense of futility discussed above. They are too often viewed as paying mere lip service and those employees who would want to take these values and policies seriously are too often ill prepared to do so effectively. A new, very practical, action-oriented approach is required to help them develop the necessary skills, the toolkit and the confidence required for “Giving Voice To Values” (GVV).

There are five distinctive features of this approach, described in the book, Giving Voice To Values: How To Speak Your Mind When You Know What’s Right (www.MaryGentile.com):

1) Asking a different question: GVV goes beyond the question, “What is the right thing to do?” in a particular situation, to ask and answer the question, “When I know what the right thing to do is, how do I get it done?” This approach to thinking and training about ethical conflicts in the workplace starts from the assumption that managers very often already know what is right. GVV then focuses on figuring out, pre-scripting and practicing what they need to say and do in order to be heard. This approach is not about preaching or arguing or even merely inspiring; it’s about building the “muscle memory” for voicing values by means of actual rehearsal, individually, in organizational training sessions, or by means of internal coaching.

2) Spotlighting positive examples: Research and experience support the power of storytelling for building and sharing organizational culture.² Too often, however, when organizations, and their leaders and employees turn to the topic of values, the emphasis is on the negative stories. There can be a sort of “scared straight” approach that is often more disempowering than anything else.

On the contrary, sharing the stories of times when individuals have, indeed, found ways to respond to the all-too-common values challenges in an organization can have a profound impact. This can be particularly so if the stories are not shared as examples of heroism, but rather as roadmaps and toolkits to be mined for effective strategies. The point is not to celebrate the individual hero, but rather to counter the fear that no one actually does this and to provide concrete examples of how it might be done well.

3) Playing to individual strengths: Again, the “Giving Voice To Values” approach to a common management development tool – self-assessment – turns conventional strategies on their heads. Although the focus here is on ethics and values, the GVV emphasis is not on “values clarification” – assessing what one’s core values are – but rather on identifying and using one’s communication and style preferences to become more effective at voicing values. In other words, rather than preach to assertive risk-embracing managers that they should be more cautious and restrain themselves, this approach would say “Embrace that risk-taking personality and use it take risks in the service of your best values.” Or, on the other hand, rather than exhort the more conservative and reticent employees to be bolder, the GVV approach would say. “Find a way to frame your values conflict so that acting on your values appears safer than not doing so.”

4) Pre-Scripting: One of the most powerful and effective strategies that organizations and their leaders can use to empower voice and combat a sense of futility in the workplace around voicing values is to provide opportunities to literally pre-script their responses to values conflicts. That is, use informal conversations, team meetings as well as formal training sessions to provide the opportunity to identify the most frequently heard “reasons and rationalizations” for NOT acting on one’s values. Employees can then work together to craft persuasive responses to those arguments and practice delivering them.

Interestingly, when this is done, it quickly becomes evident that the rationalizations for not acting ethically are finite and fairly predictable. And perhaps most importantly, they are vulnerable to refutation.³

The responses, of course, need to be refined and often the strategies used are less about arguing than they are about finding win/win’s or framing new questions or quantifying the costs of not enacting one’s values just as clearly as one has quantified the feared consequences of doing so. Anticipating these arguments in advance, thinking through their vulnerabilities beforehand, and defusing their impact are powerful tools.

5) Peer coaching: Building formal and informal opportunities to practice the scripting described above, and to work with one’s colleagues to make them more persuasive creates the sense of a community of values-driven actors who are countering the feeling of isolation and making it more likely that employees can and will act.

Each of these five behaviors is both a key component of a more action-oriented training program around values-driven leadership and behavior in an organization, as well as a mechanism that any individual – from the top of an organization to the bottom and back again – can practice and apply on their own.

A business leader cannot create a values-driven culture with rules and mission statements alone. And employees will not be effective if they merely speak out for their values, without thinking about how to help those expressions be heard and without offering to help find ways to address them. Organizational leaders and their reports must act their way into an organization that can appreciate and positively respond to expressions of values and attempts to enact them. Through pre-scripting, rehearsal and peer coaching, leaders learn to listen and employees learn to speak, creating a circle of practice that removes values from the realm of aspiration and positions them squarely within the realm of everyday business practice.

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1. “Debunking Four Myths About Employee Silence,” James R.Detert, Ethan R. Burris and David A. Harrison, Harvard Business Review, June 2010.
2. This phenomenon has been studied and explored by numerous scholars and practitioners, from Gareth Morgan to Joanne Martin to David Cooperrider to Stephen Denning.
3. See more on responding to “reasons and rationalizations” in Gentile, Mary C., “Keeping Your Colleagues Honest,” Harvard Business Review, March 2010.

Real Leaders As Trailblazers

Today's post is a guest post from Ritch K. Eich, Ph.D., author of the book, Real Leaders Don't Boss. His book is available on Amazon and you can read more about his work here. Enjoy!

REAL LEADERS AS TRAILBLAZERS

Circumstances beyond our control sometimes require leaders to be trailblazers. I had a once-in-a-lifetime-opportunity to work with one such person who easily could have been the CEO of a major Fortune 500 company, the commodore of a flotilla of ships or a university chancellor. Fortunately for the students at the University of California, Carol Tomlinson-Keasey chose the last one.

As I suggest in my just-released book, Real Leaders Don’t Boss (Career Press, 2012), when you’re in charge you must be willing and able to assume a role much like that of a quarterback by calling the signals, initiating the plays and being able to execute while continuously earning the trust and respect of your fellow players. But as any quarterback worth his salt will tell you, it takes a full team effort of fiercely determined players to win and to keep winning. Tomlinson-Keasey was an inspiring, vibrant, warm, easily approached strategic leader-- a woman of indomitable spirit and personal strength to whom people naturally gravitated. She was, for a time all too brief, our quarterback.

Her initial team was comprised of only a handful of faculty and staff but augmented by growing numbers of volunteers, all of whom were fully engaged and completely dedicated to helping her attain the goal. She was willing to tackle challenges no matter how daunting or how many obstacles lay in her path. And, the roadblocks she had to confront were numerous (including a very personal one of battling breast cancer diagnosed during her second year as chancellor). At the same time, she also realized that one of her major responsibilities was “to mentor” so that her team would continue to grow professionally at each step along the way.

The herculean task handed her in 1998 was to plan, secure funding for and later open a new campus, the University of California at Merced, in the middle of California’s rich agricultural and culturally diverse San Joaquin Valley. With higher poverty levels, lower education levels, worsening air pollution and an increasing medically underserved population more problematic than other parts of California, a new campus that would become a powerful economic engine for the state was desperately needed. In 2005, it became the 10th campus in the UC system, the first new research university in the 21st century and she its founding chancellor and the university’s first female to occupy the top spot. 

The fact that the campus was even built is practically a miracle, as it required every bit of her indefatigable spirit, high energy, stamina, unwavering belief in youth, positive demeanor and came at great personal sacrifice. Reluctant state legislators, working with four different gubernatorial administrations, nagging environmental issues and a state budget crisis that delayed the opening of the campus by a year confronted her. But so did fierce competition on the part of other UC campuses and the California State University (CSU) system vying for state appropriations and private monies, as well as often-provocative central valley pressure groups, a skeptical media and formidable construction challenges. Her story of perseverance in successfully spearheading the founding of a major research university in a huge underserved part of the country is a tour de force. Where others saw a Merced field with cotton growing or cows grazing, Tomlinson-Keasey envisioned students of immigrants, farm families, and others (often first generation college attendees) becoming tomorrow’s leaders in science, technology, medicine, engineering and the environment.

The great former University of Notre Dame president, Father Theodore Hesburgh, said: “The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. You can’t blow an uncertain trumpet.”

Carol Tomlinson-Keasey’s vision was clear, easily understood, often repeated and withstood the test of time. She was a distinguished psychologist and author, a highly ethical, exceptionally bright and persuasive woman who built effective relationships with all and invested in people. But, as importantly, she was fun to be with, had an infectious sense of humor, was a humanist, a mother, a spouse and a compassionate leader who made you feel special and valued—no matter who you were, what you did or where you came from. 

Those of us who served with Carol T-K (as she was affectionately known) on her staff or, in my case, as a founding trustee on the UC Merced Foundation Board, were privileged to be a part of her dream that became a reality. When she died in 2009 of breast cancer, three years after the opening of the University of California, Merced campus, our country lost a real leader-- a true trailblazer.

Recent radio interview I did about nonprofit leadership

In December I did a radio inteview with Chris Treece of the Chris Treece Show.

For about 30 minutes we talked about leadership, making a difference, and how we can all do something to help people in need in our community.

Special thanks to Frank Mundo for helping to set up the interview.

Interview with author, Rick Smith about The Leap

As a writer (or should I say, blogger) I often am sent copies of pre-released books asking if I would like to give the book a read and review it on this blog. Every once in a while I come across a really great book through this process.

Recently I was sent a copy of a new book entitled, The Leap by Rick Smith and it was one of those few very great books.

Below is a recent interview that I did with Rick Smith about his newest book, The Leap: How 3 Simple Changes Can Propel Your Career from Good to Great.

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To begin the interview, if you only had one sentence to use to describe The Leap, what would you say?

The Leap is a “Good to Great” for people, affirmatively answering the question, “Can people on a lifetime trajectory of ordinary break out and accomplish extraordinary things with their lives?” 

What motivated you to write The Leap?

I was example number 1.  For nearly my entire life, I had been ordinary.  B-student, middle manager, luckier than some, unluckier than others.  But mostly just average.  Then, my life turned on a dime.  In 18 months I wrote a bestselling book, launched a company that brought me into close contact with the top leaders/icons of our time, and eventually sold the company for more than I thought I would make in my lifetime. As all of this unfolded, I couldn’t help but ask myself the question, How could this have happened to of all people, me?  And are there others out there who have similarly transformed ordinary lives into something remarkable. 

Quite simply, I want others to know what I have learned, and to share in the experience. 

How many times have you successfully made “the leap” during your professional life?

Really, only once.  After the point when my trajectory changed, it was as if gravity itself had been suspended.  People, opportunities, fulfillment seem to continue to come at you.  I did however recently apply the principals in The Leap to a new area – my band – “Men Without Youth”.  In one year, we took our “dads-band” from playing neighborhood pool parties to opening for Lynyrd Skynerd and Zack Brown in front of more than 1,000 people. This really works!

What do you feel is the benefit for someone to read the book even if they are not going through a possible change in their career? 

No matter what your circumstance, everyone longs to do more, to do something special with their lives, even if it is within the context of their current roles or companies.  The Leap helps bust three common myths that hold so many people back:  In order to make a leap in my life I must 1) change who I am (fix myself), 2) go it alone, and 3) take a big risk.  These myths are false, and understanding what is real about success can allow anyone to dramatically change their impact and fulfillment. 

While reading the book and reading the many stories about people who have successfully made the leap, it appears they all had slightly different ways of “leaping.” Is it fair to say that there is no clear cut way of making the leap?

You are correct, the stories of those making the leap are as unique as the individuals.  But what is interesting is that if you look closely, the same three patterns seem to appear over and over, as they did with me.  For nearly all of us, we were left to stumble onto a leap in our lives.  My hope is that detailing these patterns for others will make them understandable, and ultimately replicatable. 

One of the underlying tones that you communicated in the book is that average ordinary people can do great things even if they don’t have grand ability, huge dreams, amazing talent, lofty goals, or amazing change. This seems to go against conventional thinking, so what caused you to take this position?

We all rationalize where we are in our lives.  I certainly did, and that is OK.  But rationalizing is different than giving up hope, letting go of our grand dreams.  Despite the title, the leap is not a guide to living on the edge.  In fact, this is a book about predictability, about using the hardwiring of the brain to assure that, whatever change you set to make in your career, the odds will be stacked in your favor.  While the outcome of a leap may be quite dramatic, the steps that set it in motion are actually just simple, risk free explorations.   

What do you believe is the main reason that people pursue career leaps into new and different work areas?

If you find yourself in a position that leverages your strengths and passions every day, you cannot help but grow and succeed.  The statistics prove it out.  But this is an elusive goal – my research suggest that less than 5% strongly agree that they are in such a role.  A successful career is really about continuous change, continuous learning about yourself, your strengths and your passions.  This learning occurs through experience, and If you can understand yourself at this level, you are much more likely to find the role that is meant for you and you alone. 

In my experience of interviewing authors I’ve found that many authors write a book, only to realize a couple months later they forgot to add a couple of key ideas or points. If you had the opportunity to write the book again, what would you change or add to the book?

For me, each book leads to new questions.  My first book, The 5 Patterns of Extraordinary  Careers profiled the super successful within organizations.  But it sparked the question in my, what about the rest of us?  What about the state school educated normal girl and guy?  What about people who seemed stuck by the time they were 30?  What allows the average person to break out and achieve similar levels of success?  These questions led to The Leap. 

The questions that I am currently wrestling with are related to what specific factors impact success and happiness the most.  My research is pointing me toward how we as individuals initiate, cope with and lead others through change. 

If someone is looking to make the leap to another career or profession, are there any other resources that you would recommend they obtain or use (besides your book of course)?

Well, not to be self serving, but as part of this book project, I developed the Primary Color Assessment (www.primarycolorassessment.com), available for FREE online (100,000 pageviews in just the last 2 months!).  This 15 minute test will identify the intersection of your greatest strengths and passions, and this is powerful information.  Knowing this is the first step in taking control over the direction of your career, and aligning this unique  “Primary Color” is the first step in taking the leap?  I am a Purple Heart.  My wife is Electric Lime. 

What is your primary color?

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For more information on Rick Smith, you can read his blog or visit LeapBuilder.com.