Mon • Jan 25th, 2010 • by Tom Nees • Comments 6
reflections on a new book by David Livermore
how to avoid embarrassing yourself and offending others
Whether doing business, providing aid or simply traveling abroad, Americans have been dubbed the “ugly Americans.” The 1958 book “The Ugly American” prompted then president Eisenhower to order a reform of American aid programs.
A 1963 movie staring Marlo Brando as “The Ugly American”—an offensive, brash, arrogant engineer in Southeast Asia, interested in advancing projects that benefited Americans rather than the local populace—popularized the description.
In spite, or perhaps because of, our global culture and multicultural society, the negative reputation unfortunately too often applies today. The “ugly American” syndrome has come to characterize cultural insensitivity at home as well as abroad.
Cultural insensitivity is more than bad behavior according to David Livermore in his new book, Leading with Cultural Intelligence.
Livermore defines cultural intelligence as an awareness of and appreciation for cultural differences—an essential skill for leaders in a multicultural world. Without it they are likely to unwittingly, and out of ignorance, embarrass themselves and offend others. Livermore recounts many of his own mistakes.
Even Harry Reid, the Senate Majority leader recently apologized for his “poor choice of words” during the 2008 campaign in his description of candidate Barack Obama.
Livermore, the executive director of the Global Learning Center in Grand Rapids, Michigan, provides an online cultural awareness self-assessment on his website. What we learn about our own cultural preferences may be as revealing as feedback from those of other cultures.
There is a lot to learn about ourselves as well as others. The path toward cultural intelligence begins with self-awareness—how we are all shaped by and act out of our own cultural behavior patterns. For Livermore, the motive for cultural intelligence is genuine appreciation, if not affection, for people from other cultures.
Cultural intelligence requires intentional study of cultural differences and a willingness to change behavior patterns as necessary to develop leadership effectiveness in any cross-cultural situation.
Livermore believes that everyone, leaders especially, can become culturally intelligent. Even though we’ll always need to learn and always be ready to apologize – as Senator Reid did – we can improve.
In today’s global village, sooner or later, most leaders will find themselves engaged in multicultural conversations and relationships. Cultural intelligence is essential for success.
Sun • Jan 10th, 2010 • by Tom Nees • Comments 4
advice from a university president,
a business leader and an executive coach
I know several leaders who at the moment are engaged in vexing organizational conflicts. In fact, some leaders have told me that most of their time is spent mediating conflict.
Much of the leadership discussion is about big ideas, vision, and leading change. Yet leaders are unavoidably caught up in less lofty responsibilities, immersed as they often are in conflict resolution. Conflict seems to be on the increase. Why?
I asked three leader friends - a university president, a business CEO, and an executive coach with many years in the corporate and public sector - these questions:
1. How much of your time has been or is given to conflict resolution?
2. Are the conflicts mostly internal or external?
3. What advice do you give for dealing with conflicts?
Loren Gresham, president of Southern Nazarene University near Oklahoma City, estimates that he spends at least ten percent of his time resolving conflict. “While that’s not a very large percentage,” he says, “when those times come along they are often draining emotionally and physically.”
“Pettiness and smallness” in his experience, “often contribute to conflict.” “Good people disagreeing over pretty small things are the most frustrating to me.” It’s “sad,” he says, when “the mission is forgotten and personal tastes and preferences prevail.”
Gerald Smith, CEO and owner of Premier Studios, a media development company, says that while he doesn’t keep track, he spends a significant amount of time helping his clients resolve conflict. The challenges, he says, “include some level of conflict resolution related to their brand, products and services.”
Internal conflicts, which he observes result primarily from a lack of information, can be avoided by “formalizing ongoing expectations and measurements.”
Deal with it quickly, he advises. “I can’t recall an internal issue where I wished I had waited longer to address the conflict. Conflict is like a virus or poison, it infects everything around it. The longer you wait to address conflict, the greater and more complex the issues become.”
Richard Schubert, now an executive coach, has spent a lifetime in significant leadership positions including the U.S. Deputy Secretary of Labor, the president of Bethlehem Steel and president of the American Red Cross. He notices a significant increase in the amount of conflict leaders must deal with.
In the past, he says, with authoritarian top-down organizations there was very little tolerance for personal disputes. “Employees didn’t want their bosses to know that they couldn’t handle the assignment. There was a very stable work force. Things were generally worked out before they came to leadership’s attention. Deep down underneath there certainly were conflicts with respect to things like turf and responsibility and prestige, growth opportunities, etc.” Earlier in his career personal conflicts were less likely to surface than they are now.
That has changed. Now, he says we live in a “very different time with a lot of personal expression and a lot less authoritarianism at play in the workplace.” He believes that some of the increased conflict in organizations is due to a generational shift.
“Today young people have an entitlement concept as a part of their lives.” The problem is that “entitlement then runs into someone else’s entitlement and that’s where the conflicts often occur.”
In an interview (available upon request), he reflected on what he has learned as an executive coach about the conflicts facing leaders in large companies.
A contributing cause of conflict, he claims, is change itself.
“A significant portion of a leader’s time addresses change. Below the surface of change is conflict or potential conflict caused by insecurity, the lack of communication and understanding of what’s happening within the organization.”
He estimates that change management requires “35-40 percent of leadership attention and focus and within that component comes the conflict,” and, he says “it’s particularly intensified in a matrix organization where there is no clear line of responsibility.”
In a matrix organization, he observes, “there are so many reporting relationships – dotted lines, even several solid lines, so that it gets very complex and the complexity leads to conflicts: What am I supposed to do? Whom am I supposed to respond to first and how?”
His advice for resolving conflict – “First, understanding; second, try to find some common ground; and third, call people to a higher level.”
Too often he notes, leaders don’t “really understand where a person who is in conflict with another person is coming from, and why — what’s the background.”
Years ago I learned an important lesson about resolving conflict. The organization for which I was responsible was facing a potentially destructive conflict. As I worked my way through it with a competent conflict resolution team, I learned that how you handle conflict is as important as the conflict itself.
Conflict resolution is an increasingly demanding, if not disturbing leadership responsibility. Conflict will happen. The question is, how will it be addressed.
Mon • Jan 4th, 2010 • by Tom Nees • Comments 5
two essential behavior patterns for leadership success
In 2007, I met Marshall Goldsmith during a leadership development conference shortly after he published, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There. He is a popular practitioner and advocate for 360 feedback reports and leadership coaching. He told us that he talks to his coach every morning!
The book summarizes what he has learned about leaders during his years of coaching. It’s worth the price just for the list of “the twenty habits that hold you back from the top.” These twenty bad habits keep us from being good persons as well as good leaders.
I too have learned some things after years of observing leaders, facilitating leadership development conferences and reading the literature. Two behaviors emerge as the most important for leaders to serve well: self-leadership and accountability.
While some leaders have it all together without feedback and coaching, most are not in that category. Even Jesus wanted feedback from the disciples when He asked them, “Who do people say that I am,” and even more direct, “Who do you say I am?” (Matthew 16:13-15) Leaders fail when they forget that before they can lead others they must know themselves and lead themselves.
For most people self-leadership is difficult without feedback and self-awareness facilitated by an objective observer. Thankfully there are many self-assessments and programs to help leaders learn about themselves as well as a growing number of people with the training and skills needed for effective leadership coaching.
And successful leadership requires accountability. As with intentions to lose weight or to exercise, leaders, like most people, need to be accountable if they are to succeed.
Leadership coaching is not telling leaders how to make good decisions with respect to their assignments; it is helping leaders become self-aware in order to develop good behavior patterns and help them follow-through with their commitments, whatever they may be.
A suggested leadership New Year’s resolution: listen to feedback and find a coach.
Sun • Dec 20th, 2009 • by Tom Nees • Comments 1
do you know what you’re good at and are you good at what you do?
I spent most of two days last week with the staff of the international development agency I’m leading in a self-assessment facilitated by USAID representatives. Through our organization we respond to human suffering in projects in the U.S. and around the world.
During the audit I was reminded that in addition to focusing on doing good things we must pay attention to our organizational infrastructure. It’s like checking the condition of a vehicle before driving to a destination.
Among other things we were asked to evaluate our strategic plan. Where are we going? Do we have a plan to get there? Does planning guide our activities or do we simply respond to the needs or opportunities of the moment?
We were asked about “branding.” That is, what are we known for? How can we become the best in our field? And how do we communicate who we are and what we are good at?
All good questions. The take-away for me was in the challenge put before us - to become the best in our field.
This doesn’t mean that we become competitive with other organizations doing good work. But whether we like it or not we are constantly being compared to others, not in what we do but how good we are what we do. Comparison is not necessarily competition. The question is not whether we are better than others but do we know what we’re good at and are we good at what we do.
Leaders and followers within any organization are responsible for the quality as well as the purpose of their work. We were reminded that our idealism is counterproductive if it blinds us to the need to ask hard questions. We learned that idealism apart from the “how” issues will likely produce unintended negative consequences. Whatever our mission, if we are to succeed we must assess how well we are doing. Good intentions are not enough.
Other than in competitive activities, organizations, enterprises and leaders can become known or legendary for being the best in a particular field or niche. Since no two organizations, or individuals are exactly alike, there are unlimited possibilities for being the best in a field.
Sun • Dec 6th, 2009 • by Tom Nees • Comments 3
reflections on Justice
the new book by Harvard professor Michael J. Sandel
Randy Cohen is one of my favorite columnists. He writes as the “Ethicist” in the New York Times Magazine. Each week he responds to a question sent to him about a moral dilemma. The question this week is whether or not an employer may refuse to hire someone solely because of his or her political persuasion. The answer is no. I like Cohen because he takes sides and takes time to explain why.
His column is a weekly reminder that every day we are faced with vexing moral dilemmas. What’s the right thing to do?
That’s the question explored by Michael J. Sandel in his new book - Justice: What’s the Right Thing To Do?, Professor Sandel—reported to be the most popular professor at Harvard, and perhaps in America—is a skilled teacher, able to turn a lecture hall with several hundred students into the intimacy of a small seminar. His lectures on Moral Reasoning based on the book can be seen on on PBS and at the Harvard website, www.harvardjustice.org.
The subtitle question– “What’s the Right Thing To Do?” reminds me of the often-repeated distinction between management and leadership. Management is doing things right, leadership is doing right things.
In his teaching on justice or moral reasoning Sandel touches on the major public issues of the day including affirmative action, same-sex marriage, abortion, a military draft vs. a volunteer or paid military, immigration, welfare and work.
Debates on these public justice or moral issues, he explains, are driven by presuppositions or concepts, which guide our personal and civic behavior. Which encourages us to ask: on what basis do we make our decisions?
In his book and lectures he identifies the strengths and weaknesses of three historical presuppositions that inform justice discussions - welfare, freedom and virtue. These concepts, he says, determine how people as individuals as well as citizens decide on doing right things.
Welfare or utilitarianism, understood as “the greatest happiness for the greatest number,” is a fundamental motivation for democracy and market economies. Prosperity it is believed promotes the general welfare. A fair distribution of wealth is thus a primary concern of utilitarianism.
Freedom or libertarianism connects justice to individual rights. The U.S Bill of Rights names liberties such as freedom of speech and religion that the majority may not violate.
“Some of the most hard-fought political arguments of our time,” Sandel writes, “take place between the two rival camps—the laisser-faire camp and the fairness camp.”
The third way is “justice bound up with virtue and the good life.” He contends, for instance, that the controversies over abortion and same-sex marriage are more than conflicts over personal freedom. Religious teachings on the beginning of life and the purpose of marriage must be considered in crafting public policy.
How are leaders who are called upon to do right things as well as do things right to act? In his concluding chapter, “Justice and the Common Good,” Sandel teaches us that doing the right thing, or justice is always about values.
Just or moral leadership is more than achieving measureable outcomes for organizational growth or market share. And Sandel reminds us of what Immanuel Kant taught: just, or moral, living, as well as leading, is more than doing the right thing, it is in doing the right thing for the right reason.
Wed • Nov 25th, 2009 • by Tom Nees • Comments 5
doing good is harder than it looks
Anyone interested in ending global poverty will want to read “How We Can Help” a November 22, column by Nicholas D. Kristof , in The New York Times Book Review.
He surveys books with conflicting opinions on how to help more than a billion people who live on less than a dollar a day emerge from extreme poverty.
Since taking on a leadership role with NCMI, a faith-based organization intent on ending global poverty, I’ve been reading these books looking for insights about the best way to relieve human suffering resulting from poverty.
A debate is raging among “bleeding hearts” - as Kristof somewhat affectingly describes those motivated by compassion.
On one side are those like Jeffery Sachs, who in “The End of Poverty” argued that the solution lies in more foreign aid from wealthy nations to reach the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. For every $100 of income, the U.S. gives 18 cents in development assistance to poor countries. Sweden gives four times that.
In “The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good,” William Easterly, a New York University professor, contends that more money may do more harm than good.
Dambisa Moyo, a Zambian economist and author of “Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is A Better Way for Africa” agrees. “The novelty,” Kristof writes, “of an African denouncing aid to Africa, and her book has set off another wave of bitter, personal feuding between the two camps.”
Kristof has taken up the cause of ending the abuse of women in his NY Times column and his recent book with Cheryl WuDunn, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide. In his travels among the poorest of the poor he has seen foreign aid projects that work as well as those that don’t.
Between the more aid and the no aid folks is Paul Collier, a Oxford University economist, who in The Bottom Billion, advocates for remedies to mitigate the internal traps that keep poor countries poor in spite of outside assistance. And Kristof likes the The Blue Sweater, a memoir by Jacqueline Novogratz describing her entrepreneurial initiatives among women in Rwanda and other African countries. As the founder of the Aucumen Fund she advocates for “patient capital” a blend of aid and capitalism.
“The helping hand strikes again,” was a cynical critique from the streets directed at some of us trying to relieve poverty in Washington, DC. I learned early on that there are right ways and wrong ways of helping. And I also learned, as Kristof concludes: “doing good is harder than it looks.”
Wed • Nov 18th, 2009 • by Tom Nees • Comments 5
there’s more to leadership than being at the top
After nearly 20 years as the CEO of a growing nonprofit organization in Washington, DC, I took an executive leadership position within a large complex faith-based organization, where I served for 15 years. It proved to be one of the biggest adjustments of my career.
I moved from being an executive responsible for an entire organization to reporting to an executive leader. There were times when I wondered whether or not leadership is possible from a secondary position.
I met recently with a group of middle leaders. I’m not sure they liked that designation. It may have sounded to them too much like “mid-level management,” a derogatory phrase often associated with unnecessary expense and counterproductive bureaucracy.
Most of these leaders had followed the leadership path I experienced – from being in a lead position to a subordinate role. This is a more difficult path than for those who move up through the ranks of an organization.
Leading from the middle can be frustrating. It can also be rewarding.
Here are five advantages of leading from the middle.
1. Since leadership is about ideas, any position can provide a platform for advancing good ideas. Ideas, and thus leadership can percolate up.
2. Leadership is more about influence than control. People at all levels of an organization can influence the organizational or corporate culture for good. This is the essence of what Robert Greenleaf taught us about the “servant as leader.” The real leaders in an organization may not be at the top.
3. Leading from within a large organization provides scale that may not be available in smaller organizations. Leading from the middle of a large organization provides opportunities to advance one’s life’s work beyond the confines of a smaller organization.
4. Leading with and within a group provides opportunity for teamwork and collaboration with peers. Some leaders are better suited for shared responsibility than for the sole responsibility required of executive leaders.
5. Leading from the middle provides the luxury of specialization. Leaders in the middle are role-players. They don’t have to do or be responsible for everything. They have the time and privilege of becoming experts at one thing.
Since retiring from the middle of that organization I’ve come to understand more fully that leadership is not positional. Leaders may by found at every level of hierarchical organizations. And those in positions of authority do not always lead. We hope they do, but they don’t always. I have fond memories of colleagues, my peers who provided, and are still providing outstanding leadership from the middle.
Mon • Nov 2nd, 2009 • by Tom Nees • Comments 1
new ideas about managing and leading up
In the best-selling book Good to Great, Jim Collins says, “…to build a successful organization and team you must get the right people on the bus.” But what if the bus driver has a problem?
How many of us have been tempted to leave a job because of a bad boss? I know some who have quit, not because they didn’t like their jobs but because they couldn’t serve well with a bad boss. But quitting is not usually a good thing to do.
In his TechRepublic article, “Dealing with the boss from down below,” Wade Mitchell warns that “While quitting is probably the easiest solution it can be pretty self-destructive.”
What is an employee to do when a bad boss frustrates the will to serve well? Evidently this is not an unusual question given the number of websites dedicated to the issue. HR specialists know that job satisfaction and performance is significantly influenced by the employee/boss relationship.
After reading a couple of recent articles and an excellent new book by John Baldoni, Leading Your Boss: The Subtle Art of Managing Up, I recalled the frustrations I’ve heard recently about bad leaders.
In his book and a recent Washington Post article, “The Upside of a Bad Boss,”Baldoni suggests ways to have influence and lead for the good of an organization in spite of bad leaders. He credits ideas from Michael Useem’s book, “Leading Up: How to Lead Your Boss So You Both Win,” for his upbeat suggestions. The positive lessons learned from serving well in spite of bad bosses apply in any work environment.
“Leading up,” or “managing up” may sound like a new idea, yet most of us have done it without thinking about it, or at least thinking about it as a good thing.
For the most part, leadership flows down not up. However “leading up,” is a reminder that we are mistaken if we think that only bosses lead. There are many ways of leading and serving well from a middle or subordinate position in spite of a bad boss.
Baldoni believes we can learn to push back the right way and to challenge assumptions without challenging the individual above. He offers examples, lessons from stories of people from all walks of life who have made a difference for good in less than perfect circumstances.
Leadership coaching is intended to help bosses become good leaders. Whether leading from the top or the middle it’s important for leaders to learn how to influence their organizations for the common good. While there are limits there are always possibilities for positive change even when the boss could do better.
Mon • Oct 19th, 2009 • by Tom Nees • Comments 6
it’s a values question
Executive compensation and bonus packages are in the headlines again. Outrage from the White House as well as the public is growing over financial leaders who are receiving multi-million dollar compensation from companies that have prospered after receiving bail-outs, at tax-payer expense.
In defense of those who receive these lavish payments is the argument that as the stock market increases - as it has recently - they deserve to be rewarded for the prosperity that benefits everyone invested in equities including the millions of people dependent on their 401k retirement accounts for their future.
Whatever the fairness or justice in that reward system, it raises a question about the value system by which we decide what leaders should get paid.
“Earning isn’t leading,” contends Joanne Ciulla, professor of leadership and ethics at the University of Richmond in a Washington Post column on the failure of Wall Street leaders.
“The craft of leadership,” she writes, “focuses on producing benefit to others, not the leader.” She goes on, “Wall Street often equates people who know how to earn high wages with people who know how to lead. It believes that market systems, not value systems, are the best way to choose leaders. The first step towards building new leaders in the financial sector entails searching for competent people who care about the craft of leadership, not the size of their paycheck.”
Compared to average workers the size of CEO paychecks has increased dramatically in the recent past.
During the October 7, 2009 NPR Diane Rehm Show, Michael J. Sandel, a Harvard political philosopher and author of the new book Justice: What’s the Right Thing To Do? was asked about the growing compensation disparity between average workers and CEOs in America. In 1980 CEOs earned 42 times the pay of workers. By 2009, he said, CEO compensation has multiplied to 345 times that of average workers!
For the most part our value system accepts that leaders should be rewarded, if not motivated financially. But at some point that value system breaks down - when, as Michael Sandel observes, that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court earns $200,000 and Judge Judy earns $25 million annually.
How much then should leaders be paid? It’s a values question. There is no standard for everyone everywhere. Each leader and each sector of society, based on stated or unstated value systems make those decisions. In these difficult financial times when a growing number of people are either unemployed or underemployed the values question cannot be avoided.
Sun • Oct 4th, 2009 • by Tom Nees • Comments 2
At what age should we begin teaching young people to be leaders?
I wondered that while reading about the new academic dean at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Dr. Andrew Phillips, “said that he has great respect for the midshipmen, and is firmly dedicated to making sure they are capable of leading ‘as soon as they put on the uniform or the ensign or the second lieutenant.’”
I live about five miles from the Academy and for nearly 20 years and have watched class after class of “plebes,” the incoming freshman - mostly recent high-school graduates about 18 years old. They graduate in four years on commissioning day receiving baccalaureate degrees and appointments as officers in the Navy or Marine Corps.
I watch these young men and women - they are looking younger every year - walking around Annapolis neighborhoods, playing football, sailing on the Chesapeake Bay and occasionally I’ve worshipped with them at the Navy Chapel. They have to be very good students to get admitted and graduate with a bachelor’s of science degree.
But that’s not all. They are trained to be leaders. After graduating in their early 20’s they are given enormous responsibility, for expensive equipment like multimillion dollar fighter planes and multibillion dollar war ships and submarines. Even more important, Phillips said, “These midshipmen are going to be put in harm’s way; it is a sure thing, and they understand this. And yet, they have chosen to defend their country.”
I know that the military command and control leadership structure is different from civilian leadership. And yet, it takes a special kind of leader, either civilian or military, to make life and death decisions. Our country’s defense as well as the lives for whom these young officers are responsible is dependent upon them being good leaders.
In the military that kind of leadership development must begin early in their training - at a very young age.
What if colleges and universities recognized that all their students need to prepare for leadership in order to serve well through their chosen discipline? What if all academic deans understood, with Phillips, that teaching young people how to lead is as important as teaching subject matter in a curriculum?
What if in our homes, our schools and churches we would teach our children and grandchildren about leadership by recognizing and rewarding them for doing the right things? What if kids learned early on the difference between being a bully and a leader?
If moral leadership training - doing the right thing - would be begin at an early age and continue through higher education we might avoid some of the leadership failures that threaten society and the world.
As I look at these young college-age midshipmen I sometimes wonder if they will be ready for the awesome responsibility of protecting and defending the country. Will they be ready to take charge on commissioning day?
I wonder about all of our young people. I hope they too are getting ready to take charge on their commissioning day - whenever that comes.