Mon • Jan 25th, 2010 • by Tom Nees • Comments 3
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 2
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.