Leadership development tips

While leadership is easy to explain, leadership is not so easy to practise. Leadership is about behaviour first, skills second. Good leaders are followed chiefly because people trust and respect them, rather than the skills they possess. Leadership is different to management. Management relies more on planning, organisational and communications skills. Leadership relies on management skills too, but more so on qualities such as integrity, honesty, humility, courage, commitment, sincerity, passion, confidence, positivity, wisdom, determination, compassion and sensitivity. Some people are born more naturally to leadership than others. Most people don't seek to be a leader. Those who want to be a leader can develop leadership ability.

Leadership can be performed with different styles. Some leaders have one style, which is right for certain situations and wrong for others. Some leaders can adapt and use different leadership styles for given situations.

Here's an Excellent 30 minute BBC Radio 4 Discussion about Modern Leadership - (first broadcast 2 Sept 2006). The discussion highlights the need for effective modern leaders to have emotional strength and sensitivity, far beyond traditional ideas of more limited autocratic leadership styles.

Philosophy is the platform on which great leadership is built. Get the philosophy right, and the foundation is strong. Ignore the philosophy and all that follows here will be built on sand. Different leaders have different ideas about leadership. Here's Jack Welch's perspective, which even though quite modern compared to many leaders, is nevertheless based on quite traditional leadership principles.

leadership tips - jack welch style..
Jack Welch, respected business leader and writer is quoted as proposing these fundamental leadership principles (notably these principles are expanded in his 2001 book 'Jack: Straight From The Gut'):

1. There is only one way - the straight way. It sets the tone of the organisation.
2. Be open to the best of what everyone, everywhere, has to offer; transfer learning across your organisation.
3. Get the right people in the right jobs - it is more important than developing a strategy.
4. An informal atmosphere is a competitive advantage.
5. Make sure everybody counts and everybody knows they count.
6. Legitimate self-confidence is a winner - the true test of self-confidence is the courage to be open.
7. Business has to be fun - celebrations energise and organisation.
8. Never underestimate the other guy.
9. Understand where real value is added and put your best people there.
10. Know when to meddle and when to let go - this is pure instinct.

As a leader, your main priority is to get the job done, whatever the job is. Leaders make things happen by:

• knowing your objectives and having a plan how to achieve them
• building a team committed to achieving the objectives
• helping each team member to give their best efforts

As a leader you must know yourself. Know your own strengths and weaknesses, so that you can build the best team around you.

However - always remember the philosophical platform - this ethical platform is not a technique or a process - it's the foundation on which all the techniques and methodologies are based.

Plan carefully, with your people where appropriate, how you will achieve your aims. You may have to redefine or develop your own new aims and priorities. Leadership can be daunting for many people simply because no-one else is issuing the aims - leadership often means you have to create your own from a blank sheet of paper. Set and agree clear standards. Keep the right balance between 'doing' yourself and managing others 'to do'.

Build teams. Ensure you look after people and that communications and relationships are good. Select good people and help them to develop. Develop people via training and experience, particularly by agreeing objectives and responsibilities that will interest and stretch them, and always support people while they strive to improve and take on extra tasks. Follow the rules about delegation closely - this process is crucial. Ensure that your managers are applying the same principles. Good leadership principles must cascade down through the whole organisation. This means that if you are leading a large organisation you must check that the processes for managing, communicating and developing people are in place and working properly.

Communication is critical. Listen, consult, involve, explain why as well as what needs to be done

Some leaders lead by example and are very 'hands on'; others are more distanced and let their people do it. Whatever - your example is paramount - the way you work and conduct yourself will be the most you can possibly expect from your people. If you set low standards you are to blame for low standards in your people.

"... Praise loudly, blame softly." (Catherine the Great). Follow this maxim.

If you seek one singlemost important behaviour that will rapidly earn you respect and trust among your people, this is it: Always give your people the credit for your achievements and successes. Never take the credit yourself - even if it's all down to you, which would be unlikely anyway. You must however take the blame and accept responsibility for any failings or mistakes that your people make. Never never never publicly blame another person for a failing. Their failing is your responsibility - true leadership offers is no hiding place for a true leader.

Take time to listen to and really understand people. Walk the job. Ask and learn about what people do and think, and how they think improvements can be made.

Accentuate the positive. Express things in terms of what should be done, not what should not be done. If you accentuate the negative, people are more likely to veer towards it. Like the mother who left her five-year-old for a minute unsupervised in the kitchen, saying as she left the room, "...don't you go putting those beans up your nose..."

Have faith in people to do great things - given space and air and time, everyone can achieve more than they hope for. Provide people with relevant interesting opportunities, with proper measures and rewards and they will more than repay your faith.

Take difficult decisions bravely, and be truthful and sensitive when you implement them.

Constantly seek to learn from the people around you - they will teach you more about yourself than anything else. They will also tell you 90% of what you need to know to achieve your business goals.

Embrace change, but not for change's sake. Begin to plan your own succession as soon as you take up your new post, and in this regard, ensure that the only promises you ever make are those that you can guarantee to deliver.

What direction will IT take in 2007?

By: Clive Longbottom

Nice article I read,...

As we bid farewell to 2006 and begin to see the realities of 2007 (ie, no real change to the problems we had in 2006), I thought I would have a look at what could change 2007 into a more interesting year in the IT space.

First, wouldn't it be great to get more IT and line of business people working together? For this to happen we need to change the nomenclatures used, and provide enabling technologies that allow business processes to be matched with technical capabilities, and vice versa. Sounds like a job for service oriented architectures (SOA).

Second, I would like to see greater harmony within the supplier community.

Third, I would like to see the death of the massively overpriced mobile data plan.

Fourth, I would like to see much greater use of networking at home.

...

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Lost in translation?

I recently read a very interesting article about the overkill of communication channels.

Thanks to e-mail, BlackBerrys, and text messaging, the face-to-face encounter is becoming a dying art. Here's why you should revive it.
One day in a week without email is a good start to revive the face-to-face encounter ;-)

Why Dogs Wag Their Tails

If you've ever known a particular dog at all well, you've probably been amazed at how easy it is to guess a dog's mood, even though dogs can't speak. Perhaps what's more amazing is that it's so difficult to guess a person's mood, even though humans can speak...

While we steer by our own insides, people around us steer by our outsides. When we conceal how we feel, or when we pretend to feel what we don't, we deprive others of information they could use to adjust their behavior. When our insides and our outsides are different enough, danger is always near.

We can learn a lot about communicating feelings by paying attention to our dogs.

Let the people around you know how you're doing
Dogs wag their tails to make sure everyone around them knows how they feel, even when nothing much is happening. When you conceal your feelings, the people around you must make something up, and they often get it wrong. Why leave it to them?

Expand your feelings vocabulary
Dogs are very expressive. To describe their feelings, they adjust their tail-wagging frequency, tail-wagging amplitude, and even their tail curl.How many different smiles do you have? How many ways do you know to tell someone that you feel hurt or offended, or to ask for what you need to put things right?

Send consistent messages
Dogs also use facial expressions, ear position, posture and vocalization to communicate. Usually all these messages are consistent, and when they aren't, the dog is saying "I have many different feelings."When we conceal or pretend, a little bit of truth leaks out, and we confuse the people around us. When we drop the concealment and pretense, consistency is easier.
Perhaps you have a dog, or you have a friend who does. Spend some time with him or her - just you and the dog. Go for a walk together (the dog will not object). Laze around. Play. Notice how easily the dog communicates feelings. Soon, you'll be doing it too. Effortlessly.

soft-skills training

Soft skills are the underlying principles that trademark a company for professionalism and excellent customer service. They provide differentiation between all the cookie-cutter look-alikes and play a vital role in customer loyalty. In today's working environment, where customers and employees are demanding more, instilling the use of soft skills in your team members is something you simply can't survive without.

When it's time to focus on soft-skills training as a tool to improve performance, leadership potential, and bottom line organizational success, consider the following:

1. Start Slowly
Instead of getting a large number of people in a room and preaching to them about their soft skills - move slowly. Introduce the concept with an informative and fun workshop. The program should also be designed to enhance their skills.

2. Involve Your People From the Start
Involve as many employees as you can on the decision to create a program, what to include within the program, and how to maintain the program. People support what they help create. Engage them, give them the possibility to make changes with your training curriculum, do a pilot program with key people, and use the pilot program as an introduction to the group.

3. Hire Expert Help
Coaches and Organizational Consultants are experts in building rapport and establishing the right culture for these initiatives. With the right culture and the appropriate training, managers can continue the task of training and cultivating good relationships. (viafoon)

4. Recognize Individual Achievement
There is so much talk about teamwork today that we forget to emphasize how important it is to praise individual achievement as well. From time to time praise your stars. Recognizing personal contributions to the team is an excellent morale booster.

5. Discover the Group's Soft-Skill Identity
All people are not the same, so their soft skills and strengths are not the same either. Once you know who you have on your team, leverage their strengths and differences because these are the facts that will help distinguish you and your organization from the competition. Illustrate how they can leverage each other's strengths inside the team to develop a new group "identity."

The essence of your business is your people. Making soft-skills development a priority will bring your team to a new level because it focuses directly on them. By allowing the human aspect of your employees to shine through, you are encouraging them to do what comes naturally to them. Don't overlook these all-important skills when evaluating areas of improvement for your team. Find a way to incorporate soft skills into your leadership development programs and see results immediately.

CIO New Year's Resolutions, 2007

According Gartner :

Growing demands for business growth and agility, rapid development of consumer technology, availability of new infrastructure tools and accelerating evolution of IT organizations will make 2007 a dynamic and challenging year in IT management. IT leaders should adopt these 10 actions in 2007.

Trust Your Instincts - But Rely On Thinking

Many methods exist for making decisions. We have tools like decision-making grids and root-cause analysis. We have trusted friends and advisory boards.
We also have gut instinct and rational thinking. At the personal level, some prefer instinct while others like rational thinking. But why not use both?

By itself, instinct can be incredible. It's what sparks our imagination, enables our creativity, and takes us to new heights.

An example of being tricked by gut intuition is making a hiring decision based on instinct alone. The new person seems like the perfect fit - for a while. But before long he falls off the pedestal and his true colors show through.

Instinct is not error-proof, and that's why we benefit by using rational thinking. An example of this might be a businessman who is presented with the perfect business deal.
If he relied on gut instinct alone he would jump on it in a heartbeat.
But, after researching the deal more thoroughly, he discovers that if he engages the deal at the present time he would exhaust all of his current resources.
His instinct was right on the money. But rational thinking showed that the timing was not right, and he averted a catastrophic decision.

Don't get me wrong. We need to trust our instincts. They're powerful and can open many opportunities for us. But for optimal decisions we should weigh our instinct against our rational thinking.

Use tools, techniques, and advisors to help. But if advisors aren't available and you have a tough choice to make, consider the following two simple steps to help you make sure you're doing the right thing:

1. Take some time and map out your reasons for action.
2. Then map out the ripple effects of NOT taking action.
   

Bottom line:
trust your gut instinct; but also think things through.
With that combination you're probably making some pretty good decisions.

Three Powerful Ways to Prevent Boss From Hell Experiences

They don't work all the time :-) , but they work often enough to make things a little more bearable if you're burdened with a Boss from Hell.

Here are three:

1. Make him look good
Pretty much all bosses, including Bosses from Hell, respond well when you do and say things that make them look good.
Let them take the credit for the good things you do. Even better - give them the credit for your successes.
Don't worry about people not recognizing who's really doing the work. They know ;-).

2. Make him feel important
Want to have some fun with your boss? Praise him. Make an offhand comment about how much you've learned from him, or how good he is at something.
Then sit back an watch how his attitude toward you changes!

3. Don't talk about problems without already having a solution
Bosses these days are under a lot of stress relative to a decade ago. And every time someone comes up and says, "Boss, we have a problem," the stress just increases.
As the stress increases, of course, so does the Boss from Hell behavior.
Next time there is a 'problem,' make sure you tell your boss about it, along with a possible solution. For example: "Boss, we have a problem. I was thinking maybe we should do ... to fix it."
Assuming your idea is a good one, your boss will appreciate the effort.

By the way - don't feel that you have to wait for a bad boss to come around to try these techniques out. Good bosses will appreciate them as well.

Have fun!

SIX WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR NONVERBAL COMMUNICATIONS

It is not only what you say that is important, but it's how you say it that can make the difference . Nonverbal messages are an essential component of communication in a conversation.

We should be aware of nonverbal behavior for three major reasons:

• An awareness of nonverbal behavior will allow you to become better receivers of your partners' messages.
• You will become a better sender of signals that reinforce learning.
• This mode of communication increases the degree of the perceived psychological closeness between speaker and listener.

Some major areas of nonverbal behaviors to explore are:

1. Eye contact
2. Facial expressions
3. Gestures
4. Posture and body orientation
5. Proximity
6. Paralinguistics
7. Humor

Eye contact:
Eye contact, an important channel of interpersonal communication, helps regulate the flow of communication. And it signals interest in others. Furthermore, eye contact with audiences increases the speaker's credibility. Speakers who make eye contact open the flow of communication and convey interest, concern, warmth and credibility.

Facial expressions:
Smiling is a powerful cue that transmits:

• Happiness
• Friendliness
• Warmth
• Liking
• Affiliation

Thus, if you smile frequently you will be perceived as more likable, friendly, warm and approachable. Smiling is often contagious and the audience will react favorably and learn more.

Gestures:
If you fail to gesture while speaking, you may be perceived as boring, stiff and unanimated. A lively and animated speaking style captures the audiences' attention, makes the material more interesting, facilitates learning and provides a bit of entertainment. Head nods, a form of gestures, communicate positive reinforcement and indicate that you are listening.

Posture and body orientation:
You communicate numerous messages by the way you walk, talk, stand and sit. Standing erect, but not rigid, and leaning slightly forward communicates that you are approachable, receptive and friendly. Furthermore, interpersonal closeness results when you and your audience face each other. Speaking with your back turned or looking at the floor or ceiling should be avoided; it communicates disinterest to your class.

Proximity:
Cultural norms dictate a comfortable distance for interaction with audience. You should look for signals of discomfort . Some of these are:

• Rocking
• Leg swinging
• Tapping
• Gaze aversion

Typically, in large college classes space invasion is not a problem. In fact, there is usually too much distance. To counteract this, move around the room to increase interaction with your audience. Increasing proximity enables you to make better eye contact and increases the opportunities for the audience to speak.

Paralinguistics:
This facet of nonverbal communication includes such vocal elements as:

• Tone
• Pitch
• Rhythm
• Timbre
• Loudness
• Inflection

For maximum teaching effectiveness, learn to vary these six elements of your voice. One of the major criticisms is of instructors who speak in a monotone. Listeners perceive these instructors as boring and dull. Students report that they learn less and lose interest more quickly when listening to teachers who have not learned to modulate their voices.

Humor:
Humor is often overlooked as a speaking tool, and it is too often not encouraged in. Laughter releases stress and tension for both speaker and audience. You should develop the ability to laugh at yourself and encourage the audience to do the same. It fosters a friendly room environment that facilitates learning. (I play soccer and if our team felt/is successful I always observe the presence of good humor in the locker room.)

Obviously, adequate knowledge of the subject matter is crucial to your success; however, it's not the only crucial element. Creating a climate that facilitates learning and retention demands good nonverbal and verbal skills. To improve your nonverbal skills, record your speaking on video tape. Then ask a colleague in communications to suggest refinements.

Getting to Know People - The Ed Principle

Instead of trying to be interestING (focusing on the ‘ing’) be interestED (focus on the ‘ed’) in the person you are talking with. You don’t have to worry about what you will say (except for your brief pitch which comes later). In fact, you can make it a goal to talk as little as possible, I promise you will be remembered as a marvelous conversationalist. Memorize this phrase: ‘Tell me more about...’ and use it! Just relax, be yourself and listen.

A way to think about priorities and focus

“It's not what's happening to you now or what has
happened in your past that determines who you become. Rather,
it's your decisions about what to focus on, what things mean to
you, and what you're going to do about them that will determine
your ultimate destiny.”

GUBU

Grotesque, Unbelievable, Bizarre, and Unprecedented.
GUBU is a sort of maxim of political and corporate infamy, effectively invented by Charles, J Haughey, Taoiseach of Ireland (Prime Minister) for three separate terms between 1979-92. Charles Haughey became embroiled in several outrageous scandals related to abuse of his position and financial affairs, and when questioned on one occasion prior to his eventual fall from grace he responded that the accusations were "...grotesque, unbelievable, bizarre, and unprecedented..."

GUBU has since become a popular acronym in Ireland, and I just want to post it here because the underlying meaning and message is obviously transferable to all sorts of corporate and political so-called leaders, who abuse their power and insult the intelligence and tolerance of ordinary people, and then shamelessly deny their shortcomings and deceit with the GUBU defence. (Ack S Doherty)

Agile Software Development

Before you can build a team that rocks, you must first become agile. If you don't already know whan an Agile team is, let me help:
An Agile software development team can add features in any order and can release a working version of the product at any iteration.

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Leadership development tip

"It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do NOT care who gets the credit." (President Harry S Truman)

SPIN Selling - Hurt & Rescue

Last week i was following a course about selling given by Peter Watson. One of the techniques we used in one of our workshops was SPIN.

Overall, the method, like many other approaches, is a 'hurt and rescue' approach. You find their problem and 'hurt' them by exposing the terrible things that might happen (spot the use of tension). Then you rescue them with your product.

The four question types are described below.

Situation questions
In big sales, minimize the small talk and focus on finding background detail that can be used to make sense of the buyer's business situation. Context creates meaning. This is about understanding the wider context before you zoom into the details.

Problem questions
Ask questions to uncover problems which your product can address. If you are selling tractors, ask about maintenance costs, breakdowns and so on. If you are selling life insurance, ask about how many dependents the person has.
A trap here is to dive straight into presenting the benefits of what you are selling. You may know the problem, but they do not! Going straight to the sales pitch will just get you objections.

Implication questions
Instead of telling them the problem they have (which is also likely to raise objections), the goal is now to get them to see (and feel!) the problem. By asking questions which draw out the implications of the problem, they get to feel the pain that will drive them towards your product. This is the 'hurt' of Hurt and Rescue.

For example, the person selling tractors might ask about implications of unplowed fields whilst the life insurance salesperson could carefully ask what would happen to the children if the target person died or became very ill.

Need-Payoff questions
Having hurt the target person with your implications, you now give them a straw to grasp at by asking how their pain could be resolved. With careful questions, you can get them to the state where they are asking for your product even before you show it to them. This is a very neat 'rescue' of Hurt and Rescue, where they either rescue themselves or ask you to rescue them.

For example, the tractor sales person can ask how much better the tractor was like when it was new, or whether any of the farmer's neighbors have solved problems of old and problematic tractors. The insurance sales person could ask questions that build pictures of the target person's children being safe and secure whatever curve-balls the world might throw at the family.

Baby talk: 8 easy and fun ways to improve your baby's language skills

29 september 2006 - 13.30u A little princess was born.

This day I became the proud father of Celine,... a day i'll never forget!
In trying to understand what she means when she's smiling/crying/guguing/gagagaing i found this interesting article.

Here are some things you can do to support your child’s language development:

• 1. Respond to your baby’s cries.
• 2. Have "conversations" with your baby.
• 3. Talk naturally with your baby throughout your time with her.
• 4. Extend her language and describe what you see her doing.
• 5. Talk to your baby about what you are doing with her.
• 6. Talk about your own actions as well.
• 7. Sing songs or tell her stories.
• 8. Read books.

Enjoy language with your baby. ;-)

Isolation and intuition team exercises

isolation and intuition team exercises (relationships, bullying and harassment, diversity, intuitive demonstrations)

Here are two simple ideas for groups which can each be developed and adapted to suit local situations.
Split very large groups into teams of ten to twenty people.

exercise 1 - isolation
The task demonstrates the feelings that a person experiences when isolated or subject to victimisation, group rejection, etc. As such it supports the teaching of positive human interaction principles, and laws relating to equality, diversity and harassment.
Ask the team(s) to nominate a person among each team to be the 'victim', who must then stand away from the rest of the team, while the team members stare and sneer at the unfortunate isolated 'victim'. For very grown-up people you can allow mild criticism directed at the 'victim' (nothing too upsetting or personal please). In any event be careful, and do you best to ensure that the first 'victim' is not the most vulnerable member of the team. Preferably it should be the most confident or senior member, and better still the team's boss. Ensure every team member that wishes to is able to experience being the victim. The review should focus on how 'victims' felt while isolated and being subjected to the staring or worse by the rest of the team. The exercise demonstrates the power of group animosity towards isolated individuals. If appropriate and helpful you can of course end the activity with a big group hug to show that everyone is actually still friends. (Hugging incidentally demonstrates well the power of relationships at the positive end of the scale of human interaction and behaviour.

exercise 2 - intuition
Aside from the lessons from exercise 1 relating to victimisation, the above activity also highlights the significance of intuitive feelings, which although difficult to measure and articulate, are extremely significant in relationships, teams and organisations. This next exercise augments the first one to further illustrate the power of intuition and feelings that resides in each of us.
Using the same or similar team(s) in terms of size, then split the team(s) into two halves. One half of the team (called 'the watched') should stand facing a wall unable to see the other half of the team (called 'the watchers') which should stand together, several or many yards away from 'the watched'.

The watchers then decide among themselves which person to stare at in 'the watched' half of the team (for say 30 seconds per 'target' person). The watchers can change whom they stare at and if so should make rough notes about timings for the review. After an initial review you can change the sides to ensure everyone experiences watching and being watched.
Of course 'the watched' half of the team won't know which one is being stared at... or will they?
In the reviews you will find out if any of 'the watched' people were able to tell intuitively who was being stared at, even though 'the watchers' were out of sight. Also discuss generally how 'the watched' and 'the watchers' felt, such as sensations of discomfort or disadvantage among 'the watched', and perhaps opposite feelings among the watchers, all of which can support learning about relationships and human interaction. For review also is the possibility that some people in the teams are more receptive and interested in the activity than others, which invites debate about whether some people are more naturally intuitive than others, which is generally believed to be so, and the implications of preferences either way.

Experiments (and many people's own experience) indicate that many people have an instinctive or intuitive sense of being watched, and although there is no guarantee that your own activities will produce clear and remarkable scientific results, the exercise will prompt interesting feelings, discussion and an unusual diversion into the subject of intuitive powers.

Four reasons not to talk too much

This is nothing new but just to remind you how important it is:
The Best Way To Increase Your Sales Is To Talk Half As Much And Listen Twice As Much

Here are four reasons not to talk too much.

1. You can't listen when you're talking.
2. You can't take notes when you're talking.
3. You can't learn when you're talking
4. You can't think creatively about what you're going to say next when you're talking.

Customer Relationship Management

CRM - principles, strategy, solutions, applications, systems, software, and ideas for effective customer relationship management

Customer Relationship Management, or CRM, is an essential part of modern business management.

What is Customer Relationship Management, or CRM?
Customer Relationship Management concerns the relationship between the organization and its customers. Customers are the lifeblood of any organization be it a global corporation with thousands of employees and a multi-billion turnover, or a sole trader with a handful of regular customers.
Customer Relationship Management is the same in principle for these two examples - it is the scope of CRM which can vary drastically.

CRM focuses on the relationship
Successful organizations use three steps to build customer relationships:

• determine mutually satisfying goals between organization and customers
• establish and maintain customer rapport
• produce positive feelings in the organization and the customers

CRM conditions
The organization and the customers both have sets of conditions to consider when building the relationship, such as wants and needs of both parties;

• organizations need to make a profit to survive and grow
• customers want good service, a quality product and an acceptable price

Good CRM can influence both sets of conditions.

Listening tip:

Quote from Dale Carnegie:
"A professional networker is someone who attentively listens...

to a subject he knows everything about...

told by someone who knows nothing about it".