Category: Leading Others

Virtuous Blending

Individual Values and the Organization

Our guest blogger, Scott Vandeventer, is Founder of Empathic Inc, an executive coaching firm and a collaborator with enLumen on leadership training projects.blending values

Every organization is strengthened or weakened to the degree a common set of values are held mutually by its participants.  Values are the rails on which an organization runs.  The same is true for individuals.

All of us are keepers of a set of values – from the infant to the eldest.  They are our own.  There’s one primary way we recognize those values in ourselves and in others:  Behaviors. Continue reading Virtuous Blending

Don’t Answer That!

Questions Leaders Should Try Hard Not to Answer

We love having the answers. It’s an ego boost to know what to do when others don’t. But just because you know the answer, doesn’t mean you should give it when someone asks.

“Answer That” Scenario

Chris is Brett’s boss. Brett’s working on a project and encounters a problem. So Brett goes to Chris and asks what he should do. Chris, having been in similar circumstances, gives Brett a great answer. Brett take Chris’ advice and successfully solves the problem. What will Brett do the next time he has a problem? He’ll think, “I know, I’ll ask Chris!”. And Chris will probably give him another great answer.

What’s wrong with this scenario? Nothing, as long as Chris wants to continue to be the organization’s bottleneck, making all the decisions. Brett (and undoubtedly, many other Bretts in the organization) is being programmed to push every decision up to Chris.

Don't Answer That

Let’s try another approach. Continue reading Don’t Answer That!

The Decisions You Shouldn’t Make

…Just Because You Can Doesn’t Mean You Should

Leaders tend to be busy people.  A corollary is that leaders tend to be bottlenecks in most organizations.  Good leaders learn to delegate – not just to get the tasks done, but because they see delegation as a tool for developing people.

Decision making bottleneck
(c) Can Stock Photo / jgroup

So let’s say you’ve mastered delegating tasks and are seeing people rise up to do things that you used to think could only be done by you.  Much to your surprise, some have proven better at those tasks than you ever were.  You’re no longer a bottleneck, right? Continue reading The Decisions You Shouldn’t Make

A Leader’s Vision

Inspiring Commitment to a Shared Future

We all love the stories of the great visionary leaders who forge their way against all odds into a future no one else thought possible.  Some people are gifted that way.  If that’s you, use that gifting well!  Be warned there are pitfalls you’ll need to navigate to avoid being one of the many visionaries who never achieve their vision.  While some highly driven visionaries accomplish amazing things, many leave a trail of abused and broken people in their wake.  Our goal as leaders is to achieve a future vision AND enable those we lead to reach their full potential.  The primary measure of our success as leaders is the success of those we lead. Shared Vision

But what if you’re a leader who lacks that visionary gift?  You still have the responsibility to inspire your followers to reach beyond themselves to achieve some as-yet-unrealized future state. Continue reading A Leader’s Vision

The 3 C’s of Execution

Removing Roadblocks to Follow-Through

Having just written about the 3 C’s of Strategy, I guess I have C’s on the brain. Even scarier is that two of the C’s of Strategy are the same as two of the C’s of Execution!Execution: Results, not Excuses

Whether you’re a boss, coach, or head of a household, you’ve undoubtedly struggled with someone with a task that just stays on the to-do list forever. Maybe it’s even you who can’t get it in gear!

Let’s look at three potential causes of that execution logjam. Continue reading The 3 C’s of Execution

The 3 C’s of Good Strategy

Clarity, Commitment, Collaboration

good strategyDo you ever secretly wonder why you really need a strategy? The business gurus all say you should have one.  But come on, you know what you want to accomplish, just jump in and get it done! Why go through the effort to gather the team, hash through it all, get something written down, then keep revisiting it in meeting after meeting all year?

You may get a measure of success by just throwing the team in the lake and saying, “swim that way!”.  They’re likely to move in the general direction you pointed. But it takes more if you want the level of success that comes from everyone rowing together at the same time toward the same objectives.

Here are three C’s that you’ll get from a well-crafted and well-executed strategic process… Continue reading The 3 C’s of Good Strategy

Leading When You’re Not the Expert

Let Your Organizational Culture Help

Technology changed a lot over my thirty-three year technology career. I started as a programmer who knew how every piece of hardware and software in our environment worked. At the end I was a VP who was tailed by IT staff when I entered the server room to make sure I didn’t touch anything (only partly kidding).
Culture of trust: Audit

I couldn’t execute my strategic responsibilities and still keep up with the operational details of the evolving technology. I had to learn to trust others with the expertise that I lacked. But my neck was in the noose if they failed. Continue reading Leading When You’re Not the Expert

Connecting at the Virtual Water Cooler

Creating Space for Casual Conversation

One of the commonly mentioned downsides of working remotely is the lack of casual conversations that happen in hallways or at the water cooler. Casual ConversationLike the challenges that come with any change, we can either whine about our loss or be intentional about optimizing our new reality.

Here’s one idea how to do that. You’ll need to adapt it to your context and probably do some trial and error to make it work for your team. For some team members it might be a hard sell at first. But if you can get a core of people who are committed enough to work through the inevitable startup hurdles, you might find you’ve created a valuable culture-building tool. Continue reading Connecting at the Virtual Water Cooler

Developing T-Shaped Skills

Bringing Value through Depth and Breadth

It’s great to be recognized as an expert. And experts do bring value to organizations that need their specific expertise. But sometimes experts are so focused in their field that they are practically unintelligible to the rest of us.T-shaped skills

Generalists, on the other hand, can bring value by connecting the dots across disciplines to get diverse functions to work together. But the jack-of-all-trades hits a wall when a master-of-one is needed.

I recognize the value of both experts and generalists. But if I’m building an organization I’ll place the highest value on the team members who have “T-Shaped Skills”. Continue reading Developing T-Shaped Skills

Productivity is a Team Sport

Time Management Isn’t Just Personal

Everyone wrestles with time management challenges at one time or another. I have a library full of resources with “surefire” solutions to this ubiquitous problem. But what works great for some doesn’t work for others. We’re not all the same and personal time management starts with knowing ourselves. But that’s a topic for another time.Productivity impact

Where most of these resources fall short is that they’re all about “me”. How do I become more productive? Seems logical, but… Continue reading Productivity is a Team Sport