Be Prepared

As a leader you need to think ahead, work out contingency plans, see when a course correction is needed, and generally always be prepared for what is to come. At work, this comes naturally to me.

Home is a bit different. The recent devastation of Hurricane Sandy coupled with my daughter doing a talk for her English class on the Zombie Apocalypse made me think about my personal emergency preparedness. Was I ready? The answer was a resounding no. Today, I made it a priority. It was not that hard. Within a few hours I had a decent kit ready and enough food and water for my family for 72 hours. The food has been labelled so that I can either eat it or donate it to the food bank in advance of it expiring.  And I have a really cool urban multitool. I should have done this years ago. But now I am ready.

If you do not have an emergency kit, don't delay any longer. Information is available to help you get started at http://www.getprepared.gc.ca/index-eng.aspx.

Be ready when the Zombies attack!

The importance of networking

In this day and age of social media, it is pretty easy to have a large network of contacts. Without trying I have 287 LinkedIn connections and 117 Facebook friends. But I recommend having real connections with real people. It is easy to do that with the people who surround you at work, but having more widespread connections is really what you should strive for as that is a lot more valuable. Why? Well, you never know when you will want to hire someone, change jobs, need some advice, and without a wide and very real network it will be difficult for you. How do I know? As with most of my lessons, I learned it the hard way.

In my previous company, in the last 5 years, I made no real effort to get out and actively network with people in the technology community. I had many excuses which included:
-"I don't need to network, I have great people right here at work if I need anything"
-"I want to give the opportunities that I see to some of the younger people here; they should do the networking"
-"I am too tired to go to a breakfast meeting and then work my regular long hours"
-"LinkedIn is a great way to network"

As you can see the excuses were weak. Truth be told, I just didn't feel like doing it. I got lazy. And that was fine until I decided to change my career and partner in a startup. I wish now, that I had spent more time keeping up my connections instead of cocooning for the past five years. Because I did that then, now in my new company hiring was harder, getting advice on lawyers and accountants to use in the area was harder,  getting first hand experience in what we should do in our startup was harder.   My LinkedIn connections were pretty useless as I mostly had connected with people who I knew at work or people who did not live in my local community and so could not help with the problem at hand (side note: LinkedIn turned out to be a valuable tool for recruiting but not until I built a good local network and paid them for additional services).

I am not the only one in this position. In the last short while, as I build my local network, I have met many people who did not nurture their personal local network and now are having to start over. For some who find themselves without jobs, the struggle to build a real network is immediate and when you are under pressure it can be a daunting chore.

The good news, however, is that with just a bit of work, it is straightforward to fix. You need to get out there, reach out to people you once new, get introductions, go out to coffee, go out for lunch, join the local community groups, join local interest groups, talk to people you don't know but would like to know, join a breakfast group, watch the twitter feeds from local organizations to learn about events, etc. I found it quite tiring at first - too many new people, too many new things .... but the real problem was me. As usual, I was trying to accomplish something immediately with my contacts. That will never work. Just put yourself out there, but don't force it - make contacts naturally, and see what comes of it. The goal is to build a network of local contacts that you might someday use or that you might someday help. It is a two way street. Since this "epiphany" my network building has been a lot more interesting and fun. And I consider it a valuable use of my time and part of my work, not just a side activity.

From my new network I have gotten some great advice; I have been put in touch with some talented people that I might some day hire;  I have learned about interesting tools that I now use on a daily basis; and I have a newfound respect for what is going on in technology in my community. A lot of upside for a small amount of consistent effort.

If you don't have a local network, start building one before you really need it. If you have one, good for you, but don't forget to keep it going. Social media is interesting and provides a lot of unique opportunities. But good old fashioned face to face networking is irreplaceable.

What women know about leadership that men don't

I read and enjoyed this article from the HBR.

http://blogs.hbr.org/schwartz/2012/10/what-women-know-that-men-dont.html

Trust

A while back, Eric asked what I thought the role of trust is in a dynamic organization. And can trust scale?

I believe that trust is an important part of an organization culture. With real trust:

• employees have great job satisfaction
• they can focus on doing their job well, confident that others are doing theirs well
• they can ask questions and make suggestions to help the product or the business, without being considered overly critical (i.e. they are free to speak their mind without recrimination)
• they can innovate and pursue freely in their area of responsibility

• organizations are streamlined
• there is very little overhead needed for management at any level
• no need for policing functions (as HR can sometimes grow to become in an organization)

I have worked in organizations where there has been real trust:

1. As a student, I worked for a Telecom company who was rolling in money. Our management was young, enthusiastic, and had the ability to decide what our team would do without any interference from upper management. The team was smart, the work was interesting and we made great progress. We were confident and no one questioned what we were doing. It was invigorating. But then the company's resources began to dry up and as cuts began, trust began to erode.  Although our work may have furthered the company's goals, the path to success was not clear and there was another group attacking the same problem in a different way. Instead of cooperating together, we were essentially competing, using  at least twice the necessary resources to achieve the results. Throughout the company there were many projects that were duplications, dead ends, or seemingly unrelated to the goals of the company. Groups were cut, budgets slashed, command and control replaced trust. The company did survive but it was a completely different type of company after that.  
2. Early in my career, I worked for a consulting company which gave me well defined constraints: the scope of work, the delivery schedule, and the resources. Once I was given a project, they fully trusted me and my team with completing the work, as long as we reported good progress each month. However, it was pretty easy to trust everyone, since there was so little room for any variation or any innovation. 
3. I also worked for company that had been stripped to the bare bones with cutbacks and all we had left were the people who wanted to make the company a success, a leader who we believed in, and a plan that we thought would work. We had no choice but to trust each other to do their part of the plan as we were under resourced in all areas. Everyone was motivated and criticism was all taken as constructive. After we turned around the company, trust continued for a short while, but then we started to grow quite rapidly, we hired more haphazardly, we brought in executives who were micro managers and the trust that we had evaporated. Trust had not been a core value of the company but more of a side effect of the position we had found ourselves in.

Although I have seen organizations with real trust, I have not seen it scale for any length of time. For trust to scale I believe that

• everyone needs to have clear direction and needs to be working toward the goals of the company
• it should not be as restrictive as my consulting company example, but it should not be a "free for all" like my Telecom company example
• trust must be a core value of the culture
• and you must work to ensure it stays that way; even though there may be trust at some point, if it is not key to the company culture, it can erode as in my comeback story
•  you must have a great hiring process
• you need to make sure that you hire talented people that fit in and share your values

Leaders are readers

Good leaders are always learning. They are avid readers. 

Needs some ideas on what to read?

Here are some ideas from HBR Blogger, John Coleman, on what leaders should read. 

I checked out the the curriculum and reading list from David Gergen's leadership course and thought it looked excellent. (Side note: I am a big David Gergen fan. I can even tolerate CNN political coverage if David Gergen is there, as I find him to be thoughtful, sensible, and balanced)

But reading does not need to be just about leadership. Below is a consensus cloud visualization of several top 100 books lists on the interweb (put together by David McCandless of Information is Beautiful - for the full data set check here). 

I have often thought of picking a top 100 book list and reading it as a New Year's Resolution. I probably will never do that but reviewing these book lists has inspired me to read To Kill a Mockingbird (hard to believe I have not read that) and True North: Discover your Authentic Leadership. 

Don't ask if you are not ready for the answer

When I was a young teenager, I remember asking my Dad to make a decision for me although the decision really could have been all mine. He chose an answer that I detested and I proceeded to throw a fit. When he saw my reaction he told me "Never ask a question if you are not prepared for the answer". I have long forgotten the question I asked but I have always remembered his great advice.

If you are a leader or manager this is very important. If you are not prepared to accept the answer to a question you have asked your team, then you should never have asked. Asking and then dismissing can be quite demoralizing.

Recently, my daughter was asked by the leader of her division if she would like the opportunity to take on a new expanded role in the company. He asked her to do some research and paint a picture of what the role and responsibilities would be. Two levels of management above her had left in the course of the previous 9 months, and she had taken on many of their responsibilities but there were more to take on. Her interim performance reviews had been stellar. She took him at his word, went and defined the role, picked a title and found out what the competition paid for a comparable job. She reviewed her findings with me and it all seemed very reasonable. Since she was new to the position, she was going to ask for a a lower than average salary until she could prove that she could handle all aspects of the job. The promotion would result in a $15k increase in salary (yet still $15k below the average salary for the work).

As requested, she sent her findings to the division head in advance of their scheduled meeting. He called her after seeing what she sent, said he was shocked, and there was no way she could possibly expect that she could get that big a raise. He said she should just be grateful for the opportunity he had given her. The meeting did happen but he pretty much said the same thing to her in person as he had said on the phone. Eventually, she got a token raise along with no title change yet he was more than willing to give her all the responsibilities of the job she had defined.  She was also told if she increased profits she could possibly get a raise (but profit sharing bonuses were not available to someone at her level). My daughter told me "well, it was better than a kick in the pants".

Why then had she been asked to "paint a picture"? The only reason that I can come up with is that the division head needed a job description and this was a way to get it. The net result is that although the opportunity is good, it has clearly taught her that he doesn't care and cannot be fully trusted; and she is now somewhat demotivated although still putting in a good effort. My take on what we learned about her division head and her company is pretty colourful in tone and not appropriate for this blog (I have also recommended a resume update). Clearly he never should have asked the question, because he was not prepared for the answer. The result was that a young enthusiastic employee feels under appreciated and overworked. She lost something in the experience; her division head lost something in the experience; and the business lost as well. All because of a question that never should have been asked.

Decision Making

Found this short blog post from Seth Godin on decision and thought it had some very good points. Check it out.

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2012/10/waiting-for-all-the-facts.html