Marshall Goldsmith Blog

In Leader to Leader’s Premier Issue, I discussed retaining high-impact performers.

The workplace is changing. Job security isn’t what it used to be. We tend to focus, understandably, on the profound impact these and other workplace changes are having on the lives of individuals. But too often leaders overlook the equally profound impact these changes are having on their organizations.

The fact is, the “new work contract”- employees taking responsibility for their own careers, and corporations providing them with career-enhancing but impermanent opportunities-can be as difficult for organizations to manage as for individuals. We as leaders still understand little of the mechanics of retaining essential high-performers in turbulent times.

Our task is complicated by four additional, less widely acknowledged trends:

* The reduced status of working for a “Fortune 500″ corporation.

* The frequent lack of connection between pay and contribution.

* The decline in opportunities for promotion.

* The rise in the influence of the “knowledge worker”.

Peter Drucker has noted the dramatically increased importance of the knowledge worker in modern organizations. Yet we are often still unsure what that means for how we should lead. Bill Gates has said that Microsoft would do “whatever it takes” to attract and retain the brightest software developers in the world.

Innovative high-technology corporations (such as Sun Microsystems) pay employees large bonuses to recruit top talent. In tomorrow’s world the “intellectual capital” brought in by high-knowledge employees will be a major, if not the primary, competitive advantage for many corporations. As the perceived value of key knowledge workers increases, the competition to hire these workers will intensify.

A Strategy for Retaining High-Impact Performers

Leaders can no longer afford to let the vagaries of the job market determine who leaves and who stays with the organization. We must learn to manage our human assets with the same rigor we devote to our financial assets. The following seven steps can help you accomplish that task:

1) Clearly identify whom you want to keep.

In recent years many organizations have focused on those people they should get rid of rather than those they should keep. Many downsizing “packages” give all employees with similar levels of experience the same incentive to leave. Unfortunately-for the organizations-the employees who decided to leave were often the high-impact performers who could find other work quickly.

2) Let them know that you want to keep them.

Amazing as it may seem, many high-impact performers who are asked why they’ve left an organization report, “No one ever asked me to stay! ” Many organizations have deliberately not told high-impact performers that they were special in any way for fear of alienating others. In the future it will become increasingly easy to retain “average” performers and increasingly difficult to retain high-impact performers.

3 ) Provide recognition.

Although compensation is an important factor for retaining high-impact performers, several studies indicate that it is currently not “the” most important factor. Typically, the chief reasons great people leave major organizations are lack of recognition, lack of involvement, and poor management The CEO of a leading telecommunications company has recently embarked on an innovative approach.

Division-level executives provide a quarterly report on high-impact performers who should be recognized. The CEO calls these individuals personally, thanks them for their contributions, and asks for their input on how the corporation can increase effectiveness. The CEO believes this process not only helps retain key talent but also generates great ideas for continuous improvement.

4) Provide opportunities for development and involvement.

One of the world’s largest consulting/ accounting firms has embarked on an original program to identify and cultivate high-potential leaders. As part of the process, young leaders engage in an “action learning” project in which they work on real-life problems facing the firm.

This gives young leaders a fantastic developmental opportunity and gives the firm valuable input on solving real problems. It also enhances the young leaders’ commitment to stay with the firm. The firm’s leaders say that such a process would not have been tried just a few years ago, for fear of alienating other partners, but that today the firm has no choice but to identify and retain high-impact partners.

5) Challenge the compensation plan.

Organizations unwilling to make performance rather than mere seniority the key driver of pay will face an increasing challenge in keeping top talent, especially young talent. One Fortune 500 industrial company recently refused to implement a variable, performance-based compensation plan because half the employees felt uncomfortable with the concept.

The corporation neglected to measure which half felt uncomfortable with more differentiated pay; but my guess is that it was the lower performers. High-impact performers of the future will be able to demand and receive substantially more pay than their lower performing peers. A “socialistic” compensation plan combined with lowered potential for promotion leads to an “average” workforce.

6) Relax the culture.

In addition to reducing bureaucracy, high- performing, high-tech companies like Netscape, Sun Microsystems, and AT&T Wireless (formerly McCaw Cellular) are known for providing freedom in dress code, scheduled hours, and lifestyle choices. While employees work very hard, they appreciate the lack of rules, regulations, and restrictions that can inhibit their freedom without increasing their productivity.

7) Provide intrapreneurial opportunities.

Gifford Pinchot (inventor of the term intrapreneur) has shown how major corporations can provide opportunities for semiautonomous enterprises to operate within the larger corporate structure.

By allowing high-potential leaders to “run a business” inside a larger business, corporations can gain commitment while simultaneously developing people. People who see opportunities for “ownership” and personal development are much more likely to stay with the organization.

In the past when a high-impact performer in a major corporation was offered a position at another company, the employee was likely to say no. Most managerial and professional jobs offered good pay, job security, promotion potential, and status.

Today the high-impact employee is much more likely to say yes. To retain such talent in the future, organizations will need to take decisive action.

Only those organizations able to create a dynamic new human resource model will retain the high-knowledge talent needed to succeed in tomorrow’s globally competitive environment.

Life is good.

Marshall

UPCOMING EVENTS:

July 25, 2008: Join me for a special live conversation on Friday July 25th with Learn From My Life. This 60 minute will be driven by your questions and will enable us to drill deeper into the key behavioral changes that will make you a better leader and more accomplished individual.

August 1, 2008 - Dartmouth - Tuck Executive Program

August 25-26, 2008 - Indian School of Business - Hyderabad

September 15, 2008 - New York - SHRM - contact Marshall if interested

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Our greatest challenge as leaders isn’t understanding the practice of leadership; it’s practicing our understanding of leadership.

The consistent and ongoing misassumption of almost all leadership development programs is “if they understand, they will do.” This assumption is not valid in any aspect of our lives, and leadership development is no exception.

If the “understanding equals doing” equation were accurate, everyone who understood that they should go on a healthy diet and work out would be in great shape. Almost everyone in America knows what we are supposed to do. Over the years our knowledge of the importance of diet and exercise has gone up dramatically. Why is it then that Americans weigh more than we have ever weighed in our history? Why is obesity considered the “new epidemic”? We all know what it takes to get in shape, we just don’t do it. I live in California. I think it was Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger who wisely noted, “Nobody ever got muscles by watching me lift the weights!”

Companies have invested millions of dollars in developing profiles that describe the behavior of their desired leader of the future. I have probably reviewed a hundred of these profiles. I have helped write about 70 of them. Most make a lot of sense. They usually suggest that leaders should have high integrity, focus on customer service, deliver quality products, develop great people and encourage innovation. Some of these profiles are organized around values and some around competencies. Many say basically the same thing – but in a language that fits their corporation’s culture. Most corporations know what their leaders should do and do a fine job of communicating this message.

Leaders who are not working for a company that describes desired leadership behavior can still read books on the topic. One of my books, Global Leadership: The Next Generation (with Cathy Greenberg, Alastair Robertson and Maya Hu-Chan), describes research findings (sponsored by Accenture) involving over 200 specially selected high-potential leaders from 120 global organizations. This book, like others of its type, paints a clear picture of desired behavior for future leaders. Kouzes and Posner, Zenger and Folkman, the Center for Creative Leadership, Personnel Decisions Incorporated and several others have written books on this topic. My guess is that any leader whose behavior even approximates the behavior that is described in any of these books will be viewed as an outstanding role model. Anyone who reads these books can understand what to do.

I recently had the privilege of working with the CEO and over 2,000 of the top leaders in one of the world’s most admired companies. The company had developed a well-thought-out profile of desired leadership behaviors. Leaders in the company received 360-degree feedback to help them understand how their actual behavior was seen as matching this desired profile. All were trained to respond to co-workers on their feedback using a very simple follow-up process. At the end of the training, leaders were asked in a confidential survey if they were going to do what was taught in the program. Almost 100 percent said that they understood and saw the value of what was being taught. They almost all vowed that they were going to follow up with their co-workers, work on their “areas for improvement” and get better.

A year later, the same leaders and their co-workers were surveyed to see what happened. Many of the leaders (about two-thirds of the total group) actually did what they committed to do and, as a group, they were seen as becoming much more effective. Some leaders, however, did absolutely nothing as a result of receiving feedback and attending training, and as a group they were seen as improving no more than can be attributed to random chance. The training that they attended produced no more change than staying home and watching sitcoms.

Howard Morgan and I published an article entitled “Leadership Is a Contact Sport” in the Fall 2004 issue of Strategy+Business that involved over 86,000 respondents from eight major corporations. Just like the 2,000 leaders mentioned above, every leader in our study received feedback. They were all given some very simple instructions on how to follow up with co-workers and how to become more effective. Our results showed that there was no correlation between understanding and doing. The leaders who did absolutely nothing understood what to do as well as the leaders who actually executed on their improvement plans. Amazingly, the leaders who did nothing rated the value of the programs just as highly as the leaders who executed. The “did nothings” not only understood what to do – they saw the value in doing it.

Over the years, I have had the opportunity to interview hundreds of leaders in the “did nothing” category. I always ask them why they didn’t do what they said they would do after their leadership development programs. Their answers never have anything to do with ethics or integrity. In spite of some terrible recent examples of ethics violations, most leaders that I meet are highly ethical people. They are not liars or phonies. They truly believed that they should change and that this was the “right thing to do”. Their answers never have anything to do with a lack of intelligence or understanding. These are very bright people. They not only saw the value in what they committed to do, they understood what to do and how to do it.

Our research paints a compelling picture. Peole don’t get better because they go to “programs”. They don’t get better because they listen to motivational speeches. They only get better if they pick something important to improve, involve the people around them and follow up in a disciplined way. Long-term change in leadership effectiveness takes time, follow-up and discipline – not just understanding.

Life is good.

Marshall

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Marshall’s Upcoming Schedule:

August 1, 2008 - Dartmouth - Tuck Executive Program

August 25-26, 2008 - Indian School of Business - Hyderabad

September 15, 2008 - New York - SHRM - contact Marshall if interested

My daughter Kelly Goldsmith and I reviewed research on goal-setting and asked ourselves questions such as:
Why do people so frequently give up in their quest for personal improvement? Most of us understand that “New Year’s resolutions” seldom last through January – much less for the entire year! What goes wrong?

We found six of the most important reasons that people give up on goals:

Ownership

One of the biggest mistakes in all of leadership development is the roll-out of programs and initiatives with the promise that “this will make you better”.

Successful people tend to have a high need for self-determination. In other words, the more that leaders commit to coaching and behavior change because they believe in the process, the more the process is likely to work. The more they feel that the process is being imposed upon them or that they are just casually “trying it out” – the less likely the coaching process is to work.

Coaches and companies that have the greatest success in helping leaders achieve long-term change have learned a great lesson – don’t work with leaders who don’t “buy in” to the process. As coaches, we need to have the courage to test our client’s commitment to change. If clients are just “playing a game” with no clear commitment, we need to be willing to stop the process – for the good of the company and for the good of the coaching profession.

In goal-setting coaches need to ensure that the change objectives come from “inside” the person being coached and are not just externally imposed with no clear internal commitment. Coaches need to let clients know that they are ultimately responsible for their own lives. As coaches we need to make it clear that we are there to help our clients do the work – not to do the work for our clients.

Time

Goal-setters have a natural tendency to underestimate the time needed to reach targets. Everything seems to take longer than we think that it should! When the time elapsed in working toward our goal starts exceeding expectations, we are tempted to just give up on the goal. Busy, impatient leaders can be even more time-sensitive than the general population.

In setting goals with leaders it is important to be realistic about the time needed for them to produce a positive, long-term change in behavior. Habits that have taken 48 years to develop will not go away in a week. Let them know that others’ perceptions may seem “unfair” and that as they change behavior – others may not fully recognize this change for months. In this way when they face time challenges they will not feel like there is something “wrong” with them or with their co-workers. They will realize that this is a normal part of the change process. Ultimately, as the research shows, perceptions will begin to change and co-workers will begin to appreciate changed leadership behavior.

Difficulty

The optimism bias of goal-setters applies to difficulty as well as time. Not only does everything take longer than we think it will – it requires more hard work! Leaders often confuse two terms that appear to be synonymous – but are actually quite different – simple and easy. We want to believe that once we understand a simple concept, it will be easy to execute a plan and achieve results. If this were true everyone who understood that they should eat a healthy diet and exercise regularly would be in shape. Diet books are almost always at the top of the best seller lists. Our challenge for getting in shape – as well as for changing leadership behavior - is not understanding, it is doing!

In setting goals it is important that leaders realize that real change will take real work. Making client’s feel good in the short-term with statements like “this will be easy” and “this will be no problem for you” can backfire in the long-term when they realize that change is not easy and that they will invariably face some problems in their journey toward improvement. Letting leaders clearly understand the price for success in the beginning of the change process will help prevent disappointment that can occur when challenges arise later in the change process.

Distractions

Goal setters have a tendency to underestimate the distractions and competing goals that will invariably appear throughout the year. One good counsel that a coach can give an executive is, “I am not sure what crisis will appear – but I am almost positive that some crisis will appear!”

In planning for the future, coaches need to help executives assume that unexpected distractions and competing goals will occur. Build in time in change projections to “expect the unexpected”. By planning for distractions in advance, leaders can set realistic expectations for change and be less likely to give up on the change process - when either special problems or special opportunities emerge.

Rewards

Goal setters tend to become disappointed when the achievement of one goal doesn’t immediately translate into the achievement of other goals. For example, a dieter who loses weight may give up on his weight loss effort when women don’t immediately begin to love him.

Leaders need to personally “buy in” to the value of a long-term investment in their own development. If coaching clients think that improving leadership skills will quickly lead to short-term profits, promotions or recognition – they may be disappointed and may give up when these benefits don’t immediately happen. If coaching clients see the change process as a long-term investment in their own development – and something that will help them become more effective over the course of their careers - they will be much more likely to “pay the price” needed to achieve success.

Maintenance

Once a goal-setter has put in all of the effort needed to achieve a goal, it can be tough to face the reality of maintaining changed behavior. One of the first reactions of many dieters upon reaching their weight goal is to think, “This is great! Now I can start eating again. Let’s celebrate with some pizza and beer!” Of course this mind-set leads to future weight gain and the “yo-yo” effect that is unfortunately so common in dieters.

Coaching clients need to clearly understand – leadership is a process – not a state. Leaders can never “get there”. Leaders are always “getting there”. The only way that exercise helps people stay in shape is when they face the reality that “I have to work on this stuff for the rest of my life!” Leaders need to accept that leadership development is an ongoing process that never stops. Leadership involves relationships – relationships change and people change – maintaining any positive relationship requires ongoing effort over a long period of time. It doesn’t occur because someone “got better” and stayed in this state of “betterness” forever.

In Summary

Coaches can either help leaders set goals that increase their probability of long-term change, or help leaders set goals that may feel good in the short-term – but lead to disillusionment and “giving up” in the long-term.

Coaches that have the courage to tell the truth “up-front” and challenge leaders in goal-setting can go beyond being “highly paid friends”. Honest, challenging coaches can help leaders make a real difference – both in their organizations and in the lives of the people they lead.

Life is good.

Marshall

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I was privileged to hear General Mills CEO Steve Sanger tell 90 of his colleagues: “As you all know, last year my team told me that I needed to do a better job of coaching my direct reports. I just reviewed my 360-degree feedback. I have been working on becoming a better coach for the past year or so. I’m still not doing quite as well as I want, but I’m getting a lot better. My coworkers have been helping me improve. Another thing that I feel good about is the fact that my scores on ‘effectively responds to feedback’ are so high this year.”

While listening to Steve speak so openly to coworkers about his efforts to develop himself as a leader, I realized how much the world has changed. Twenty years ago, few CEOs received feedback from their colleagues. Even fewer candidly discussed that feedback and their personal developmental plans. Today, many of the world’s most respected chief executives are setting a positive example by opening up, striving continually to develop themselves as leaders.

In fact, organizations that do the best job of cranking out leaders tend to have CEOs like Steve Sanger who are directly and actively involved in leadership development. That has certainly been my experience.  This has also been confirmed by Hewitt Associates, one of the largest HR consulting firms. Hewitt and Chief Executive magazine put General Mills on their latest list of the top-20 companies for leaders, among such familiar names as IBM and General Electric.

Hewitt found that these organizations tend to more actively manage their talent. They put lots of focus on identifying high-potential people, better differentiate compensation, serve up the right kinds of development opportunities, and closely watch turnover. But crucial to all these efforts were CEO support and involvement.

No question, one of the best ways top executives can get their leaders to improve is to work on improving themselves. Leading by example can mean a lot more than leading by public-relations hype.

Michael Dell, whose company made the Hewitt list, is a perfect example. As one of the most successful leaders in business history, he could easily have an attitude that says, “I am Michael Dell and you aren’t! I don’t really need to work on developing myself.”

Michael, however, has the opposite approach. He has done an amazing job of sincerely discussing his personal challenges with leaders across the company. He is a living case study from whom everyone at Dell is learning. His leadership example makes it hard for any leader to act arrogant or to communicate that he or she has nothing to improve upon.

Johnson & Johnson, tied for first on the top-20 list, has successfully involved its executives in leadership development. Its CEOs and top executive team regularly participate in a variety of leadership-building activities. Having a dialogue with the CEO about his business challenges and developmental needs makes it a lot easier for employees to discuss their own business challenges and developmental needs.

Executive candor can even help turn around a troubled company. Consider Northrop Grumman, the aerospace defense contractor. CEO Kent Kresa inherited a company that had a poor reputation for integrity, a battered stock price, and an unfortunate reputation as one of the least-admired companies in its industry. His leadership team reversed the company’s poor image and engineered an amazing turnaround – ultimately becoming the Forbes’ most-admired company.

From the beginning of the process, Kent led by example. He communicated clear expectations for ethics, values, and behavior. He made sure that he was evaluated by the same standards that he set for everyone else. He consistently reached out to coworkers. He didn’t just work to develop his leaders–he created an environment in which the company’s leaders were working to develop him.

Unfortunately, in the same way that CEO support and involvement can help companies nurture leaders, CEO arrogance can have the opposite effect. When the boss acts like a little god and tells everyone else they need to improve, that behavior can be copied at every level of management. Every level then points out how the level below it needs to change. The end result: No one gets much better.

The principle of leadership development by personal example doesn’t apply just to CEOs. It applies to all levels of management. All good leaders want their people to grow and develop on the job. Who knows? If we work hard to improve ourselves, we might even encourage the people around us to do the same thing.

Life is good.

Marshall

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The most common behavior problem I have found in the executives I have worked with is an obsession with winning - and this isn’t just CEO’s.

It’s common in most highly successful people, including me. When the issue is important, naturally we all want to win. But if it’s trivial, we still want to win. Even if it’s not worth our time, or it’s to our disadvantage, we often try to win anyway.

Here is an example of what I’m talking about.  You want to go to dinner at restaurant X. Your spouse wants to go to dinner to restaurant Y. You have a heated debate. You go to restaurant Y. The food’s bad, the service is awful. Now you’ve got two options.

Option A - critique the food, point out to your spouse how wrong he or she was and how this debacle could have been avoided if he or she had listened to you. Option B - be quiet, eat the food, and try to have a nice evening.

What do 75% of my executive clients say they would do in this situation? Critique the food. What do they agree they should do? Shut up. If they do a cost-benefit analysis, they realize that their marriage is more important than winning the argument.

So I tell my clients, “Before you get into any conflict, take a deep breath and ask yourself, ‘Is it worth it? What do I have to gain by winning? What do I have to lose?’ “

A related problem is what I call adding too much value. Imagine you’re the CEO. I come to you with an idea that you think is very good, but rather than just say, “Great idea!”, your tendency - because you have to win - is to say, “Good idea, but do it this way.”

Well, you may have improved the quality of my idea by 5%, but you’ve reduced my commitment to executing it by 30% because you took away my ownership.

The higher up you get on the corporate ladder, the more you need to make other people winners, and not make it about winning yourself.

One of my clients said once he got into the habit of taking a breath before he talked, he realized about half of what he was going to say wasn’t worth saying. Even though he thought he was right, he realized he had more to gain by not winning.My parting advice:  Don’t always insist on winning.

Sometimes you have more to gain by not winning.

Before you get into any conflict, ask yourself what you have to gain by winning, or what you stand to lose.

Life is good.

Marshall

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In the movie The Bridge on the River Kwai, the main character, Colonel Nicholson, is a prisoner of war in Burma who leads his men to build a bridge for his Japanese captors. Nicholson is an officer of high integrity, dedicated to excellence, a great leader of people - and thus well trained to complete any mission that he is given.

So he skillfully inspires his men to build a near-perfect bridge. By the film’s end, he finds himself in the painful position of defending the bridge from attack by fellow British officers who want to destroy it - to prevent Japanese trains from using it.

There’s a chilling moment of realization, right before the bridge is detonated, when Nicholson (played by Alec Guinness) utters the famous line, “What have I done?” He was so focused on his goal - building the bridge - that he forgot his larger mission - winning the war!

That is goal obsession, which is a subset of wanting to win too much. It rears its ugly head in many ways. In its broadest form, it’s the force at play when we get so wrapped up in achieving our goal that, like Colonel Nicholson, we do it at the expense of a larger mission.

It’s one of those paradoxical traits that are usually the sources of our success, but taken too far can become blatant causes of failure. You see this when people become fixated on the wrong goals. Given their history of success, they end up achieving a result that does more damage than good to their organizations, their families, and themselves.

The canyons of Wall Street are littered with victims of goal obsession. I asked one hard-driving deal maker, “Mike, why do you work all of the time?” He replied, “Why do you think? Do you think I love this place? I am working so hard because I want to make a lot of money!”

I continued my inquiry, “Do you really need this much money?”

“I do now,” Mike grimaced. “I just got divorced for the third time. With three alimony checks every month, I am almost broke.”

“Why do you keep getting divorced?” I asked.

The answer came out as a sad sigh. “All three wives kept complaining that I worked all the time. They have no idea how hard it is to make this much money!”

This sort of classic goal obsession would be laughable if the irony — or more accurately, the failure to appreciate the irony — weren’t so painful.

One of the most ironic examples of goal obsession was the “Good Samaritan” research done by Darley and Batson at Princeton in 1973. In this widely referenced study, a group of theology students was told that they were to go across campus to deliver a sermon on the topic of the Good Samaritan.

As part of the research, some of these students were told that they were late and needed to hurry up. Along their route across campus, Darley and Batson had hired an actor to play the role of a victim who was coughing and suffering.

Ninety percent of the “late” students in Princeton Theology Seminary ignored the needs of the suffering person in their haste to get across campus. As the study reports, “Indeed, on several occasions, a seminary student going to give his talk on the parable of the Good Samaritan literally stepped over the victim as he hurried on his way!”

What’s happening here? Goal obsession clouded their judgment. They were under time pressure. They were in a hurry. They had deadlines. They were going to do something that they thought was important. Other people were depending on them. And in that hothouse of circumstances, their goals got warped. After all, when people committed to hitting their targets pick the wrong one — when they focus on the bridge and not the war — somebody may end up getting hurt.

Try this. It’s simple, but not easy.

Step back, take a breath, and look around.

Survey the conditions that are making you obsessed with the wrong goals.

Remember that time and deadline pressures come with being a leader. We confront them every minute of every day. They do not go away.

This makes it all the more important to reflect upon our work, match it up against the life we want to live, and consider, “What am I doing?” and “Why am I doing this?”

Ask yourself, “Am I achieving a task and forgetting my organization’s mission? Am I making money to support my family — and forgetting the family that I am trying to support?”

After all this effort and display of professional prowess, you don’t want to find yourself at a dead end, asking, “What have I done?”

Life is good.

Marshall

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I worked with an executive who was a very dedicated and well-organized leader. In the past, she always took pride in her ability to juggle a high-pressure job and still maintain a sane personal life with her husband and two young kids. As a devoted mother, she always tried to be home by 6:30 each night to spend time with her children. Her staff considered her to be a great boss. She was an excellent listener and kept her door open to everyone.

One unexpected outcome for her openness and inclusion was that she began to make more and more excuses for working late. Soon she was regularly at her desk until 9:30 or 10 p.m. At first, she thought it was simply because she loved her job. But as she analyzed the problem, she realized it had nothing to do with her love for her work.

Her staff depended on her too much.

One of the potential dark sides of power is creating dependency. Great leaders know how much they depend on the people in their organizations. They don’t just count on the power of their positions to get things done; they personally create the kind of loyalty and respect that inspires people to “take the hill” even under the most difficult circumstances. But dependency is a two-way street. The more the leader is respected and admired by the staff, the more the staff may feel the need to gain the approval of the leader.

The currency of access can be seen as a sign of importance and acceptance. Staff members often assume that if their leader chooses to spend her limited time with any one person, that person’s ideas and opinions must be uniquely valued. In some cases this may play out as a grab for face time with the manager and can lead to a dependency that becomes trouble.

This executive had created an environment where getting face time with her was as easy as going to the ATM. This developed into a never-ending spiral where she could never leave the office. People were always coming by, saying, “I just need a couple of minutes of your time.” As we all know, a “couple of minutes” always means more than a couple of minutes. She tried to give her staff whatever they needed. It just seemed as if they needed too much.

She came up with a wonderful idea–one that I hope will help you the next time you feel trapped by a staff that wants more than you can give. She set up one-on-one meetings with each of her direct reports to discuss their responsibilities and her responsibilities.

First she asked each person, “Let’s review your key areas of responsibility. Are there places where I can let go? Are there other instances where my help can make a big difference?”

Her staff acknowledged that they really didn’t need her input on many decisions. They had just gotten used to checking in, in a way that was probably not the best use of anyone’s time. Each person was also able to focus on areas where her involvement was having a real positive payoff.

Her second question involved her areas of responsibility. She asked, “Do you ever see me doing things at my level that I don’t need to be doing? Are there activities that I could be delegating to others?” Every person had at least one good idea of how she could let go of part of her work, helping her simultaneously save time and develop the skills of each member of her staff.

She thanked everyone and implemented almost all of their suggestions. She realized that while part of the problem was their need to depend on her, another part was her need to feel important and needed by them.

Follow this course, and face time will have as much value as Confederate paper. Within a year or so, employees will be developing on the job so well that they may need to have a discussion about how they need less face time and more out-of-my-face time from you.

Life is good.

Marshall

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May 29, 2008 - Helping Successful Leaders Get Even Better - and Helping CEOs ‘Pass the Baton’ - Register

June 9, 2008 - San Francisco - Institute of Management Consultants

June 12, 2008 - London - “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There” The Comedy Store

June 19, 2008 - Minneapolis - Training and development professionals - all day

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August 1, 2008 - Dartmouth - Tuck Executive Program

What happens after that terrific seminar or planning session? Does everything go back to business as usual, or does everyone apply the best of what they learned?

A few years ago, I taught a series of one-day courses for the top 2,000 leaders at one of the world’s most admired companies.

As part of the program, each executive received confidential 360-degree feedback. I asked all of the participants to use that feedback to pick one or two areas for personal improvement, talk with their coworkers about what they were going to change, and ask for suggestions on how they could become more effective leaders. Then they were asked to follow up with co-workers by having short ongoing dialogues to help ensure that this process led to a positive, long-term change in their leadership behavior.

In confidential surveys after the course, almost all of the participants enthusiastically agreed that they were going to do what they were asked to do. A year later, almost 70% of the leaders actually did something related to their commitments. About 30% did absolutely nothing. The good news for the 70% was that their co-workers reported that they had become more effective leaders. As for the 30% who did nothing - well, at least they weren’t seen as getting worse! I suppose that qualifies as good news too. But the do-nothings raise an interesting question.

I have had the opportunity to follow up with the leaders in the 30% category and ask them why they didn’t do what they said they would do. Their answers seldom have anything to do with ethics or integrity. In spite of recent examples of terrible ethics violations, the huge majority of leaders I meet are highly ethical people. They are not liars or phonies. They truly believed that they should change and that this was the “right thing to do.” Their answers usually don’t have anything to do with lack of intelligence or understanding either. They are all very bright people. They not only agreed with what they committed to do, but they also understood what to do and how to do it.

So why didn’t these leaders do what they said they were going to do? Why do we often fail to do what we know we should do?

The answer can be explained by something they tell themselves. It’s something I have told myself for years. I am going to predict that you have told yourself the same thing - maybe often, maybe for years. You may be getting a little skeptical right now. You’re probably thinking, “This guy doesn’t know my mind. What is he talking about?” We will see how accurate my guess is.

The interior monologue sounds something like this. “You know, I am incredibly busy right now. In fact, I feel about as busy today as I have ever felt in my entire life. To be honest, I just feel constantly overcommitted. To be really honest, given what is going on at work and at home, sometimes my life feels a little out of control. But, you see, I am working on some very unique and special challenges right now. I think that the worst will be over in four or five months. After that, I am going to take a couple of weeks off and get organized. I am going to start working on my personal development. Then I am going to start spending more time with my family. I’ll start exercising and eating right. When I do, everything is going to be different - and it won’t be crazy anymore.”

Have you ever told yourself something like that? I have, and so have most of the leaders whom I meet every week. Many of us have been saying this to ourselves for years.

That’s why we haven’t been doing what we know we should be doing. We are waiting until life isn’t crazy. We are waiting until we “have some time.” We are waiting for a day that may never appear.

I have learned a hard lesson trying to help real leaders change real behavior in the real world. There is no “two or three weeks.” Things don’t calm down or slow down. Look at the trend line. There is a good chance that tomorrow is going to be even crazier than today.

So here’s my suggestion. Ask yourself two very hard questions.

First, what change is going to make the biggest, positive difference? And second, what am I willing to change now? Not next week, not next month, not when everything starts to make sense. Now.

Don’t worry so much about everything else.

Just change that.

Life is good.

Marshall

www.MarshallGoldsmithLibrary.com

www.MarshallGoldsmithFeedForward.com

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If you’re a CEO, have you ever noticed what happens when you’re thinking out loud in your organization? When the leader sneezes, everybody else may get pneumonia. This is something every boss needs to consider before opening his or her mouth, because the same dynamic occurs all day long in the workplace — to the point where even the manager’s praise can create confusion.

For example, I advise my clients to be very conscious of their tendency to grade or rate people on the quality of their suggestions. Bosses do this all the time. If a direct report makes a suggestion, the boss will say, “That’s a great idea!” That’s nice to hear, of course. We’ll go home that night and tell our significant other, “You’ll never believe what the boss said about my idea today.” But if we hear, “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard!” the power of the comment is multiplied. The wound may linger forever.

And when the response falls in between, that can be the worst. Does it mean we’ve scored a 4 out of a 10, and the boss expects better? Is the boss turning against us? If praise given can be potent and inspiring, then praise withheld can be potent and disorienting.

That’s the problem when we openly judge what our colleagues say to us. It can set off a chain of events beyond our control, which defeats the purpose of talking to people in the first place.

Perhaps the most outrageous story about a leader’s unappreciated power comes from the CEO of a telephone company. He was driving home thinking about work when he passed a solitary phone booth on a quiet residential corner. “That’s an odd location for a phone booth,” he thought. “I wonder how much money it earns us.”

The next day, he runs into a midlevel employee in the hallway, someone on the operational level, not a manager. He says, “I’m curious. How much do we make on that phone booth near my house? It’s not a big deal. Don’t spend a lot of time on it. Just send me a note.”

The employee looks it up and starts to write that note. His manager walks by and asks, “What are you doing?”

“Oh, this is for the CEO. He stopped by and wanted to know how much we make on the phone booth by his home.”

“You can’t send him a little note. There’s no comparison of this phone booth with other booths in the area.”

So the question gets bumped up to the next level, and the next, and you can imagine the result. About two months later, an executive vice president and the original manager walk into the CEO’s office with a phone-booth study in a three-ring binder that’s as big as a phone book. The CEO looks at it with a blank expression and says, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He later told me that this one comment had cost his company over one million dollars!

Most bosses are smart enough to sense the impact of their statements. They know how a harmless suggestion can be taken as an order. That’s why they couch their musings in carefully calibrated language intended to signal that they shouldn’t be taken too seriously. The trouble is, no matter how much sweetener is sprinkled on the conversation, when the CEO is involved, it’s never a fair fight.

When they’re asserting their authority, CEOs are not shy about throwing their weight around. It’s when they’re trying to be democratic and fair that CEOs forget how much they still weigh. If you’re the boss, there’s no point in pulling your punches. They still carry a lot of wallop. On occasion, it’s much smarter not to punch at all.

So bite your tongue. Sometimes — more often than we know — it’s less confusing for the boss to simply say thank you or nothing at all. Because whether you intend it or not, whatever you say has the power to knock folks out.

Life is good.

Marshall

www.MarshallGoldsmithLibrary.com

www.MarshallGoldsmithFeedForward.com

We all like to think of ourselves as important.  Here is a story about how to become really great in the eyes of the people you meet.

Two highly accomplished lawyers are sitting at the bar at Sparks Steakhouse in New York. One is my friend’s lawyer, Tom, and the other is Tom’s law partner, Kevin. They’re having a leisurely drink, waiting for their table to open up. Sparks is a landmark steakhouse where a handful of New York’s rich, powerful, and glamorous are in attendance most nights. On this night, the A-list name is superstar attorney David Boies, who argued the U.S. government’s case against Microsoft. He makes a beeline to the bar to say hello to Kevin, whom he knows from previous cases.

Boies joins Tom and Kevin for a drink. A few minutes later, Kevin gets up to make a phone call outside. Boies remains at the bar, talking to Tom for 30 minutes. “I’d never met Boies before,” Tom said. “He didn’t have to hang around the bar talking to me. And I have to tell you, I wasn’t bowled over by his intelligence, or his piercing questions, or his anecdotes. What impressed me was that when he asked a question, he waited for the answer. He not only listened, he made me feel like I was the only person in the room.”

Tom’s last 13 words perfectly describe the single skill that separates the great from the near great. When Kevin inexplicably disappeared, Boies stuck around and made a lasting positive impression on Tom. The two attorneys have different practices; the chance that Tom could somehow help Boies one day is virtually nil. Boies clearly wasn’t looking to score points. In showing interest, asking questions, and listening for the answers without distraction, Boies was simply practicing the one skill that has made him inarguably great at relating to people.

I’m not sure why all of us don’t execute this precious interpersonal maneuver all the time. We’re certainly capable of doing so when it really matters to us. If we’re on a sales call with a prospect who could make or break our year, we prepare by knowing something personal about the prospect. We ask questions designed to reveal his inclinations, and we scan his face for clues.

The only difference between us and the super-successful among us - the near great and the great - is that the greats do this all the time. It’s automatic. There’s no on-off switch for caring, empathy, and showing respect. It’s always on.

So why don’t we do it? We forget. We get distracted. We don’t have the mental discipline to make it automatic.

Ninety percent of this skill is listening, of course. And listening requires the discipline to concentrate. So I’ve developed a simple exercise to test my clients’ listening skills. Close your eyes. Count slowly to 50 with one simple goal: You can’t let another thought intrude into your mind. You must concentrate on maintaining the count.

Sounds simple, but incredibly, more than half of my clients can’t do it. Somewhere around 20 or 30, nagging thoughts invade their brain. They think about a problem at work, or their kids, or how much they ate for dinner the night before. This may sound like a concentration test, but it’s really a listening exercise. After all, if you can’t listen to yourself (someone you presumably like) as you count to 50, how will you ever be able to listen to another person?

Like any exercise, this drill both exposes a weakness and helps us get stronger. If I ask you to touch your toes and you can’t, we’ve revealed that your muscles are tight. But if you practice each day, eventually you’ll become more limber.

Once you can complete the exercise without interruption, you’re ready for a test drive. Make your next interpersonal encounter-whether it’s with your spouse or a colleague or a stranger-an exercise in treating the other person like a million bucks. Employ these tiny tactics: Listen. Don’t interrupt. Don’t finish the other person’s sentences. Don’t say, “I knew that.” Don’t even agree with the other person.

If he praises you, just say thank you. Don’t use the words “no,” “but,” and “however.” Don’t let your eyes wander elsewhere while the other person is talking. Maintain your end of the dialogue by asking intelligent questions that show you’re paying attention, move the conversation forward, and require the person to talk (while you listen).

Your only aim is to let the other person feel that he or she is important. If you can do that, you’ll uncover a glaring paradox: The more you subsume your desire to shine, the more you will shine in the other person’s eyes. You may feel like a dullard as you listen quietly, but invariably the other person will say, “What a great guy!” You’d say the same thing about anyone who made you feel like the most important person in the room.

Life is good.

Marshall

www.MarshallGoldsmithLibrary.com

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