Part
Five – Enable Others to Act
Chapter
Nine – Foster Collaboration
You
can't do it alone.
Exemplary
leaders focus on creating value for their customers.
Individuals
who are unable to trust others fail to become leaders, precisely
because they can't bear to be dependent on the words and work of
others.
Leaders
put trust on the agenda; they don't leave it to chance.
Trust
is the most significant predictor of individuals' satisfaction with
their organizations.
Knowing
that trust is key, exemplary leaders make sure that they consider
alternative viewpoints, and they make use of other people's expertise
and abilities.
Leaders
go first. That includes going first in the area of trust.
By
attitude and action, Harry was earning the trust of his constituents.
Successful
leaders and team members subordinate their own goals to the service
of a greater good.
A
focus on collective purpose binds people into cooperative efforts.
Tasks
must be structured so that each person's job makes a contribution to
the end result.
To
develop cooperative relationships, leaders must quickly establish
norms of reciprocity within teams and among partners.
The
norm of generalized reciprocity is so fundamental to civilized life
that all prominent moral codes contain some equivalent of the Golden
Rule.
Rewarding
joint effort is important and it is difficult when your entire
population is a group of high-achieving professionals who trade on
their connections and intelligence.
Emphasizing
the long term is also effective in helping people deal with
short-term setbacks.
Human
networks make things happen. Constant talking on the phone.
Knowing
stuff doesn't necessarily translate into action.
The
new currency of the Internet Age isn't simply intellectual capital,
it's social capital–the collective value of the people we know and
what we'll do for each other.
The
most well-connected individuals are those who have played the
greatest variety of roles in their lives.
The
New New Thing is neither new nor a thing. It's trust.
Maggie
modeled the value of collaboration by sharing information herself.
Emotional
intelligence is no passing fad.
The
old American myth that competition is the path to business heaven has
died a slow death.
Going
first requires consider self-confidence.
Trust
is contagious.
People
need to feel that their voice matters and that their vote counts.
Practice
listening. Remember that listening doesn't mean not speaking. It may
mean asking questions for clarification or paraphrasing what someone
else said.
Always
say “we,” not “I”
They
are at once experts and interdependent team members.
Bear
in mind that the purpose of jigsaw groups (a training technique where
each team member is given a piece of the puzzle) is to build
cooperation, not just a product.
Begin
a problem-solving sessions by asking the involved parties to state
their areas of agreement first, rather than their differences.
You
want to create a sense of mutuality.
Leaders
must generate alternative currencies, customizing rewards to the
needs of the different parties included.
In
this virtual world people are losing the ability to listen and
interact. There are two prerequisites to a “human moment”:
physical presence and attention.
The
most genuine way to demonstrate that you care and are concerned about
other people as human beings is to spend time with them. Five or ten
minutes at a time is sufficient, if done regularly.
Don't
wait for someone else to make the connections; take charge and make
it happen.
Create
places and opportunities for informal interactions. Increase the
connections and interactions among employees.
Chapter
Ten – Strengthen Others
My
challenge was to instill confidence in them and help them recognize
their abilities.
Understand
what each person aspired to and enjoyed doing.
Rather
than dwelling on areas in which they lacked skills, I pointed out the
importance of them playing complementary roles.
While
lack of experience was unavoidable, lack of knowledge or enthusiasm
were not acceptable.
Exemplary
leaders make other people feel strong.
People
who feel powerless, be they managers or individual contributors, tend
to hoard whatever shreds of power they have.
Feeling
powerful–literally feeling “able”–comes from a deep sense of
being in control of life.
A
key factor in why people stay in organizations is their managers.
It's equally important in why people leave organizations.
In
a sense the leader acts as a coach and an educator, helping others to
learn and develop their skills, and providing the institutional
supports required for ongoing, experiential learning and maturation.
In the final analysis, what leaders are doing is turning their
constituents into leaders themselves.
Leaders
accept and act on the paradox of power: we become most powerful when
we give our own power away.
Encourage
others to act as leaders.
Shared
power results in higher job fulfillment and performance throughout
the organization.
When
leaders share power with others, they're demonstrating profound trust
in and respect for others' abilities. When leaders help others to
grow and develop, that help is reciprocated.
People
who say “Yes, I Can” and realize that “I Make A Difference”
in their organizations know that what they do matters. This feeling
of personal effectiveness leads them to take it upon themselves to do
whatever is needed to bolster organizational vitality.
It
is not a matter of giving people power–it's liberating people to
use the power and skills they already have. What we often call
empowerment is really just letting people loose, liberating them to
use their power.
Leaders
are transformational in that they enable people to transcend their
own self-interests for the good of the group or the organization.
Providing
choice (greater latitude and discretion) was essential for enabling
people to apply such concepts as “continuous improvement” to the
government or public sector.
The
energy that can be unleashed as a result of giving people choices is
life-sustaining: control over your destiny can save your life!
Narrow
job categories confine choices, broader ones permit increased
flexibility and discretion.
To
create increasingly adaptive systems, leaders must support more and
more discretion to meet the changing demands of customers, clients,
suppliers, and other stakeholders.
A
study of the U.S. Navy's best ships revealed that their commanding
officers give top priority to the development of their sailors.
Leaders
are genuinely interested in those they coach, having empathy for and
an understanding of each of their constituents.
Jack
Stack writes, “The best, most efficient, most profitable way to
operate a business is to give everybody in the company a voice in
saying how the company is run and a stake in the financial outcome,
good or bad.” At Stack's company 86 percent of the training budget
is spent on educating everyone to be a businessperson.
I
was constantly involved and interacted with team members on a daily
basis, providing guidance, support, and feedback as they moved along.
In this way, she worked to make them individually, and collectively,
more capable of working on their own, with a strong sense of
ownership and accountability.
Gabrielle
struggled a bit with giving power away–and found the effort well
worth it. As she recalls, “I learned that if you challenge and
empower people, they will produce incredible results. It gives them a
sense of pride, authority, and the confidence to do well.”
Each
of us has an internal need to influence other people and life's
events so as to experience some sense of order and stability in our
lives.
Decision
making was a skill developed through practice. The more one worked at
it, the more capable one became.
Leaders
develop the capabilities of their team and foster self-confidence
through the faith they demonstrate in letting other people lead. In
taking these actions, leaders act as coaches, helping others learn
how to use their skills and talents, as well as learn from their
experiences.
The
people who make a difference in our lives are not the ones with the
most credentials, the most money, or the most awards. They are the
ones who care.
Ask
lots of questions to guide their thinking.
Peer
expectations are a powerful force in motivating us to do well.
Accountability
was pushed by reminding the operators to “focus on the problem, not
the person.”
Strengthening
others is essentially the process of turning constituents into
leaders–making people capable of acting on their own initiative.
Power
doesn't flow to unknown people; becoming powerful requires getting
noticed.
In
strengthening your constituents ensure that they're highly visible
and that individual and group efforts get noticed and recognized.
People
who are most central to solving the organization's crucial problems
and ensuring the company's long-term viability have the most power.
What's
critical to an organization–and what the owners should know–is
dynamic and ever-changing.
Most
jobs are not particularly glamorous.
People
prefer merit-based reward systems.
As
a leader, you want to model the appropriate behaviors, provide
guidance and coaching, maintain an environment that facilitates
execution.
Gary
had each person chair the meetings for a month.
Remember
to provide the necessary resources–materials, money, time, people,
and information–to perform autonomously.
Without
education and coaching, people are reluctant to exercise their
authority.
Your
goal is provide people with competence and confidence.
Whether
it's horseback riding or shipping products or developing software
code, they all got confidence by doing something over and over again.
Confidence is an aftermath, not a prerequisite.
Peter
Drucker has observed that “knowledge workers and service workers
learn most when they teach.”
Without
a level of comfort (safety) people are generally unwilling to be
vulnerable, to take in information that might seem threatening, or to
develop new skills.
To
further bolster a learning climate, schedule a once-a-month
one-on-one dialogue, with each of your direct reports, using tested
and effective methods.
