Naked, Wet …and Getting an Education at “Shower University”

January 15, 2013 by

Shower UniversityFor more than a year now I haven’t had a commute. I don’t miss the commute, but recently I had a realization – a longing even, for something I did enjoy while commuting… listening to books. I used to read & listen, through an insane number of books and I loved it. Learning and growing is something core to my motivation. With no commute this last year, I have missed that aspect greatly.

In my own Ultimate Personal Success Plan, one of my goals is to read more, but I just have not found the time. No matter how much I finagle with my schedule, and no matter how early I got up, I just wasn’t been able to dedicate enough time. There is always something to fill the gap. That was until I created “Shower University,” oh yeah, things were changing now!

What I realized is that I have at least 30 minutes every day when I have down-time. This down-time was when I showered, got dressed, and groomed myself each day. I realized it was the perfect time to educate my mind, while my body was in autopilot. I came across the Water-Resistant iShower BT Shower Speaker and fell in LOVE WITH IT! It easily connects via Bluetooth to my phone, where I can stream all by Audible.com books. I also have a waterproof pad, similar to the Aqua Notes – Waterproof Notepad so I can jot down ideas or thoughts while I am learning.

The lesson in this is to look for efficiency in all you do and look for ways to be creative, or accomplish more in the “down times” of your day. Execution sometimes requires being creative with your time and resources. Learning and growing likewise might require creativity. So use your creativity to find time to learn and become a better leader. All great leaders are staunchly dedicated learners.

All great leaders are staunchly dedicated learners.” Tweet This!

Here are a few Audible.com offers I found. I’m a huge fan.

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Have you done anything to bring about more learning, growth, or greater execution in your life? Please share below.

Filed Under: Leadership Growth, Personal Leadership Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

What’s The Leadership Parachute That Helps You Escape Disaster?

July 26, 2012 by

What's Your Leadership Parachute?I recently had an interesting dream. In the dream I was on top of a very large hill overlooking a lake. A man was chasing me and we were struggling over a small parachute, the kind used in kite-surfing, sometimes called parachute-surfing. I managed to gain control of the parachute and deploy it, just in time to get away from him. Being that it was a small parachute, it would take me up in the air and then drop me back down in short bursts. I was often being dragged on the ground until I cold get back on my feet.

My pursuer was hot on my trail. As I came down the hill toward the lake, I was not sure what to do; but the wind picked-up and took me high up into the sky and across a section of the lake towards an opposing shoreline. As I was up in the air, I had my eyes clinched tight, scared because of the situation I was in. I opened one eye and saw myself very high in the air and descending rapidly downward, fear filled my heart and …I awoke.

From a leadership perspective, I was left wondering about parachutes. Parachutes are often used in the financial planning world as an analogy to financially protect oneself or ones family from disasters that could hurt them.

As leaders and individuals we all have a lot of strings to manage and keep taught. We have many relationships to carefully watch over.  There are competitors and sometimes colleagues, chasing after us. There is a huge demand for our time, and forces that often blow us in many directions, yet leave us feeling alone. So I have to wonder, what is your leadership parachute that can help you escape disaster?

Perhaps it is a coach that can help you gain perspective on problems in the business. Perhaps it is a “second in command” or other key employee that has your back and will help you climb out of the holes that you get stuck into. Perhaps your parachute is an activity that grounds you, such as a sport, or a learning resource. Perhaps it is a friend or family member.

Parachutes can come in all shapes and sizes. It is important that you know what your parachute is so that you can grab it when the world seems after you.

What is your parachute? When has your parachute gotten you out of a sticky situation in business or life? Please share your thoughts below to help inspire others.

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The Urgency For Good Leadership

April 13, 2012 by

Leadership“There is no tomorrow to remember if we don’t do something today, and to live most fully today, we must do that which is of greatest importance. Let us not procrastinate those things which matter most.” This message from Thomas S. Monson is eloquently said, yet it is advice that has been received over and over from leadership figures for years. The concept has been a said a million different ways, and yet it has taken me years to fully comprehend the deep significance in my leadership and personal success.

There are a lot of businesses still struggling in this economy. There are still a lot of good people without jobs and a lot of good people struggling personally and financially. There are people working long hours for little pay and struggling to make ends meet.

With that said, there is something that really breaks my heart and cuts me to the core. It boggles my mind and I struggle to comprehend the reasoning. I can only come to a conclusion that people are emotionally broke. The problem I am referring to is the unwillingness to become greater today, for a better tomorrow. I talk with a lot of business owners and employees of businesses that know things are not peachy. Yet what are they doing to improve their ability. Do they read books, to overcome their weaknesses and find answers to their problems? Do they read blogs of experts that teach tidbits of clues on a million topics of self-improvement? Do they make goals and plans and actually stick to those plans?

It breaks my heart that I can see the capacity of individuals, that they cannot see in themselves. So instead of a book, instead of a blog, instead of goals, instead of asking for help, instead of preparing for the future…….they “do their job,” go home, and “veg.”

The world needs good leadership, our nation needs leaders, our businesses need leaders. Leaders and managers that have a hunger and thirst for knowledge, improvement, and execution. These are the people that will get ahead, these are the people that will understand, these are the people that will have a brighter future – because, “There is no tomorrow to remember if we don’t do something today”

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So, now that you’ve read this article, how are you going to use this information to create urgency and preparation for a better tomorrow?

Please take a moment and share your ideas in the comments section below, share this with your social media friends, and subscribe to receive A Slice of Leadership notices, and occasional leadership advice, articles, tips and freebies.
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Who is a Leader?

March 25, 2012 by

Are You a LeaderThere is an old saying, “in today’s world, its not what you know but who you know that counts.” Now lets modify it to fit the context of leadership, “in today’s world it’s not what you know that makes you a leader; it’s who you are that counts.”

I am working from the assumption that anyone writing and reading in the leadership development space has long since moved beyond the ‘either you have it or you don’t’ paradigm that sees organisational leadership as a simple ‘talent’ issue.  More than likely also is acknowledgement that having a good tool kit is only one aspect of leadership and that development implies ongoing endeavors.  Possibly even, systems thinking is the lens through which the issue of developing leadership is viewed.

There is currently quite a buzz about leadership and systems thinking.  The language of complexity and chaos theory pervades blogs, academic writing, and discussion about systems thinking and its practical application to the field of leadership development.  There is also a significant buzz to the opposite effect in terms of the lack of practicality despite any attractiveness of the theory.

It seems to me, however, that whilst the pace of change has increased exponentially, the world in which we humans live has always been complex to a greater or lesser degree.  Really, all that has changed is that some of us now see it from a different perspective.

Similarly, viewing the world from a simple ‘either/or’ world view is just that; it is a way of seeing things, a paradigm – which unfortunately for those in the minority – still largely dominates the world of organisations.  It also seems to me, to use a very crude analogy, that to try to persuade doubters of the practical application of a systems thinking approach is a bit like a pacifist trying to prevent war by fighting.

I sometimes wonder whether the benefit of systems thinking is not so much in any practical organisational application, but more in giving us a lens though which we can view who we are, and where we fit in the complex world in which we live and work.  That is, being more conscious about who we are and what we seek to create in the world enables us to create more meaning and satisfaction in our lives.  Being and not doing is to me, the real power of systems thinking and is also the ‘who’ of leadership.

I think the following story gives a flavour of what I am trying to describe.  Or company did some work with a group of leaders not so long ago.  We were looking at the place of personal growth and self-development in the role matrix of being a leader.  About half way through the session a question was posed to the leaders group about what they might change in themselves in order to generate a different outcome with a ‘difficult’ employee.  The response from one leader (let’s call him William) was clear, and somewhat bluntly delivered, “Why should I care?  As far as I am concerned they either like it or lump it!  If they don’t like my leadership they can go and work somewhere else”.  There was a momentary and rather shocked silence in the group before my well practised ‘group leader’ swung into action and we moved forward with the session as adequately as possible.   But, in that moment, what I was really conscious of was that I wanted to say, “Well you SHOULD care about the poor people who work for you!”

This incident led to some soul searching within me in the weeks following, and I wish to share some of my thinking with you.  My first reflections were thus:

  1. Systems thinking tells us that everything we are is learned.  No matter how blessed our genes, early life experiences and later experience in life and work, no leader is capable of optimally managing every situation he or she faces; nor is he or she beyond learning something new.  .
  2. Further to that, Ken Wilber in his Integral Theory describes the development of a new paradigm as both ‘including and transcending’ a previous paradigm.  Systems thinking also tells us that a holistic systems thinking approach is a more sophisticated paradigm than the mechanistic cause and effect, ‘either / or’ view of the world this leader was demonstrating.

But, despite the comfort of knowing this, something didn’t quite sit right in me.  The only way I can articulate what I was also thinking goes something like this…. Who am I to judge? ‘I am right and he is wrong’ is not a systems thinking way of seeing this situation.  So I began to reflect on and examine the situation from the perspective of some of the following understandings about systems thinking that we use in our work:

  • We human beings operate in our work and play in a network of relationship where it is impossible to fully see and understand the extent of the whole picture.
  • Even if we could see it all it is only a snapshot of a moment in time and then the next interaction occurs and the whole picture changes.
  • We cannot anticipate what will happen next.  We can warm up to what is possible but ultimately we have to act in the moment to respond as best we can to the situation or person we encounter.
  • How we respond is dependent on our personal ‘role system’ or the role repertoire we have developed within ourselves over time.

(N.B. a role comprises the values, beliefs, somatic experience and behavioural expression of a whole world view that occurs in response to another person or situation).

  • ‘Who we are’ emerges from our role system.
  • There has to be a sufficient level of perturbation in a system for change to occur.  Challenge is often the first step to change and every challenge is an opportunity to learn something new and add to our role system – or for changes to occur in the wider social system.
  • We can also choose to grow our role system (or wider social system) by being consciousness of what we are seeking to create.
  • Just as ‘we are what we eat’, who we are will largely determine who will follow us.

As I reflected on the situation I came to the following understanding:

  • The leader in question works for a large and successful family-owned business. There is a very low staff turnover and many staff remain in the business over their entire working lives.  They don’t consider themselves poor at all!

We have observed that many people who choose to work in family-owned and operated businesses tend to be comfortable or perhaps more accurately familiar with and accepting of the dynamics of such a family system; and perhaps originate from similar family systems themselves.  In such situations there is little need for change to the leadership practices in the business and the ‘FIFO’ principle works well.

  • In our work I have learned, sometimes painfully, that the way we work is not for everyone, not everyone is ready, willing and / or able to work with a systems thinking approach and the situation I have described was one of those occasions.   There simply was no requirement for William to change.

I myself however, found that I was really challenged by how judgmental I felt in the moment of William’s response.  My personal reaction to this situation was incongruent with my view of myself as a leader.  I highly value diversity, and struggled with the idea that I might expect William to see the world from the same lens as I did; or that I would believe his response was less acceptable than mine (even though I did).  This situation provided a platform for my learning and for growing who I am as a leader.

A wise teacher once said to me when I was struggling to deal with a situation where I was not the formally mandated leader, but it seemed that rest of the group I was working with were looking to me for some sort of leadership.  He said, “Leadership is conferred by the people who follow you.  The question here is not, Are you the leader?  The question is, Who is the leader you choose to be?”

Connect with Arohanui-Grace: Website | Twitter | LinkedIn

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Reflection as a Leaders Tool

March 17, 2012 by

Leadership ReflectionWhen I started writing The Leaders Workbook back in 2009, I had discussed leadership and leaders with thousands of people around the world. I came to realize that we often ended up talking about the same topic – how can we become better at what we do? What are the key success factors to grow and develop as leaders? What can we – each one of us – do to develop ourselves?

We often agree that if we only could spend more time thinking about our actions, our plans, the results we create, how we ended up where we happened to be, why we made such and such mistake, how to avoid it in the future…the topic list goes on, while the challenge remains. I found that leaders on all continents, in all sectors, in all industries and on all levels, struggle with the same issue. The challenge of reflecting.

We all accept that we need to stop and rewind from time to time. There are not many I have met that call themselves a leader, who do not agree that we need to focus more on retrospection and reflection. Yet, very few seem to have found the key to reflection in todays busy schedule.

Time

As soon as you agree that reflection is important for you to grow as a leader, to develop yourself and your team, your first quest becomes to find the time for reflection. There are written books on time management, from Steven Covey’s Big Rocks to Getting things Done, from Personal Efficiency Plan (PEP) to Do it Now. There are trainings, theories, and competing theories of course,  and wars fought between some of these groups. None of these tools give you more time – they can only help you structure your time better.

No matter how you use your time, I believe that you are able to find the required time to reflect in your busy schedule. Most leaders I know, travel. Some only between their home and their office, others seems to always be stuck at some airport. And travel time is easy to convert to reflection time. When you sit there, stuck in traffic, you can spend quality time with yourself. And if you, like me, spend much time on airports and planes, you have plenty of time to bring out that notepad and jot down your doodles while thinking about how you are doing.

Even if you are not traveling, there are plenty of other opportunities for reflection – if you are working out, spend that time thinking, reflecting on your goals, and your results. You can make it a routine to take five minutes in the morning (or before going to bed at night) to reflect on a topic. Or you could schedule a meeting with yourself every week – 30 mins a week will take you a long way!

Take a couple of minutes right now, and review your weekly activities. Where can you add reflection to an activity? As soon as you figure out that it is quite easy to re-design your time to accommodate for reflection, the next challenge turns up.

 Topic

After time, figuring out what to reflect about seems to be the biggest hurdle for leaders I speak with. My answer was: Any reflection is good for you., it does not really matter what you reflect upon, as long as you reflect. In my own reflection, in retrospect obviously, I found that my answer wasn’t very helpful. It was too broad, to open to actually provide a solution.

I realized that most of us had unlearned reflection and reflective behavior, even if reflection is one of two key elements in experiential learning (Kolb, 1984). We need to relearn reflection. As leaders, there are some topics that tend to be more important than others, and the challenge for many leaders is to discover these topics, and to use those as a training ground for relearning reflection. As soon as you start searching for these topics, you realize that those tend to evolve around one main area – leadership.

Questions like «How valid is our goal?», «What is different now, compared to when we started? How does this impact our journey towards the goal?», «Where are we going if we continue down this path?», «What alternative paths are there?», «How can I change my behavior (so I am better suitable to reach our goal)?». The questions themselves may be different, and the answers you seek may not always be what you like to find. That is part of the purpose of reflection – you are to look deeply within to see if you are doing the right thing. For you, for your team, and for the organization.

Impact

I took it upon me to relearn reflection, as well as learning leaders how to reflect. All of the trainings I design are designed with reflection in focus. We use reflection actively to both teach the topic of the training itself, and as a way to exemplify how important reflection is in our learning and development. Often in our trainings, you will go through exercises designed for individual reflection, group reflections and plenum reflections, each iteration adding to your learning. And often without you realizing that what you are doing, is in fact, reflection.

The same is true when you start looking into reflection as a leadership tool. The more you reflect, the more you realize that it comes naturally, and that without it, you are not able to do your job. You will discover that we all reflect, most of the time. By relearning how to use your reflecting skills as a tool in your leaders toolbox, you can increase your ability to see possible challenges early, and seek alternative solutions before you are forced into a corner. You become pro-active.

To create that impact, I invite you to take a couple of minutes to identify three possible topics where you would benefit from reflecting more. If you like, you can share those topics below in the comments.

Connect with Kai Roer: Website | Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook

Filed Under: International Leadership Blogathon Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

4 Steps To Avoiding the “F” Word & Meaningless Leadership

January 25, 2012 by

Meaningless LeadershipFrancis Chan stated so eloquently stated,”Our greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter.” The depth of truth in that statement gives me goose-bumps. Oh how often we find ourselves, succeeding at the things we are good at and never pushing ourselves try different and greater things that will really matter in our lives, our companies and our relationships.

There is a difference in achieving something that took a lot of effort and achieving something that is meaningful, great, and lasting. I have thought about this and wondered how can I determine if a goal I have really matters.

Avoiding Meaningless Goals & Meaningless Leadership

Work through the following steps, to determine if a goal you have is really meaningful and to avoid meaningless leadership in your organization:

  1. Will this goal contribute to my long-term success?
  2. Will achieving this goal make me (a better leader, a better spouse, a better manager….etc…)?
  3. Talk with friends, coaches, family, subordinates and colleagues and ask them if the goal you are making is meaningful and really matters. This is especially important if your goal effects them.
  4. Ask yourself, if nothing held me back, is there a goal that is higher on the same ladder that will be more meaningful? Don’t short-change yourself by not pushing hard enough.

These steps, while simple will push you beyond a stretch. Meaningful often means harder, but not necessarily, but the rewards are hugely greater if you achieve a meaningful goal and create meaningful leadership successes. It is better to work hard and fail inches from a hard meaningful goal, than to succeed at tiny meaningless goals.

So don’t be afraid of the “F” word, FAILURE, be afraid of setting meaningless goals for yourself or your organization, for with meaningless goals, comes meaningless leadership.

Setting Meaningful Goals t0 Avoid Meaningless Leadership

I recommend reading The Ultimate Personal Success Plan and follow the 4 steps listed above to get on the path of creating goals that will be meaningful to you, your organizations, and your relationships.

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So, now that you’ve read this article, how are you going to use this information to bring more meaning to your goal achievement and avoid meaningless goals and meaningless leadership?

Please take a moment and share your ideas in the comments section below, share this with your social media friends, and subscribe to receive A Slice of Leadership notices, as well as occasional leadership advice, articles, tips and freebies.
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What a 2-Legged Dog Taught Me About Leadership Resilience

May 4, 2011 by

Several years ago I was in Argentina on a mission for my church.  On one particular day I walked down a dirt road in a small town called General Castex, located in the Las Pampas region of Argentina.  I spotted an animal at the end of this street, but could not figure out what it was.  It was walking on 2 legs, but did not appear to be a 2 legged animal.  As I got closer to the animal, I stopped and gazed in disbelief.  It was a dog, but no ordinary dog.  This dog had lost the use of both its hind legs in some kind of accident, but strangely enough, it was not immobile.  It actually had learned to walk on its front 2 legs.  When it walked, it would bring the back-end of its body high in the air and walk on its front legs.  It could go up and down steps and across the not so even terrain of a small Argentine street.

I snapped a picture (which I can’t seem to find) and knew that there were a hundred lessons to be learned from that animal.  But the primary one ……is resilience.  Resilience is the power or ability to return to the original form, position, etc., after being bent, compressed, or stretched.

I have often felt bent, broken, compressed and stretched as a leader.  I am not aware of too many leaders who have not.  Particularly at the level of start-ups and small business, the stress and problems can be too much for some to bear.  I know of hundreds of small business owners that struggle in one form or another.  Their lives are tough, they sleep little, they work a lot, their families suffer, and sometimes they wonder if it is really worth it all.

I have been there many times, and while I would like to say that those things are behind me, I know that my trials are most likely preparing me for something more difficult.  Only time will tell.   

I can’t say I have all the answers, but I’d like to share a few thoughts I have on how to foster resilience in your own life.

  1. Cling to Your Spiritual Side – If you are religious, cling to that.  If your “religion” is to get out in nature, do it.  In tough times I think we need to feel the hope that there is something, someone, or some force out there that can assist us.  It helps us to feel peace and to gain perspective.  Sometimes in the whole scheme of things, our trials really are insignificant.  The peace and perspective that is gained from spiritual renewal can help us logically think through problems and bounce back bigger and better.
  2. Learn – Reading and learning about others who have struggled, and learning ways that I can improve myself have been one of the most rewarding effects in my life.  It has also helped me find out-of-the-box answers, and better perspectives for many of my problems.  Sometimes I am the problem and I need to learn how to better myself, sometimes it is an operational or communication issue.  If you notice a weakness that you or your organizations has, don’t wait, buy a book, take a class, and start gleaning knowledge from others that will prepare you for life’s “bends”.
  3. Ask For Help – Entrepreneurs and leaders tend to have a built in pride gene that is hard to turn off.  I think it is just as important to accept help, as it is to help others.  Asking and accepting help, requires humility.  There are so many professionals out there that are more than willing to share their insight and offer assistance in many ways.  Get out there and ask for help, the worst thing that someone can say is “No”. 
  4. Manage Yourself – Manage your time, manage your energy, and manage your communication.  It is easy to get into bad habits when one is going through a hard time.  This could be bad eating habits, bad sleeping habits, bad time management, focusing on things that are not important, and poor or short communication to those who are central to your success.  You probably need every resource you can muster.  Don’t waste it by falling into common stress traps, which will work against you in bouncing back.
  5. Focus But Keep Proper Perspective – Stay focused on the problem.  Few problems go away by ignoring them.  It may require a lot of work that you do not enjoy, but things will not get any easier if you can’t bounce back, so you have to focus on the problem and not deviate.  But while you are focusing, keep proper perspective on other important things in your life.  If you work really hard to bounce back or solve a big problem, but in that time you completely ignore your family, or ignored an important part of your business or an important customer, then all you have done is fixed one problem and caused another.  You are not any better off.  Communicate with others about your problems and explain what your plan is.  Focusing does not mean you have to ignore everything else.
  6. Persist – I can’t imagine how how many times that dog must have fallen before it was able to balance itself and walk on 2 legs.  If it had just given up after a few falls it would probably have been dead.  Keep getting up!  Sometimes answers come in the final hour of struggle.
  7. Know When To Call It Quits – This may seem to counter the post, but we are talking about leadership resilience.  Sometimes you need to know that the effort to fix a problem isn’t worth it.  Maybe it will require too much money or too much time, whatever it is, you need to know when let an initiative die and move onto bigger and better things.   Bouncing back may just mean moving on.

 

Warren Bennis, a great organizational consultant and author once said “The leaders I met, whatever walk of life they were from, whatever institutions they were presiding over, always referred back to the same failure – something that happened to them that was personally difficult, even traumatic, something that made them feel that desperate sense of hitting bottom–as something they thought was almost a necessity.  It’s as if at that moment the iron entered their soul; that moment created the resilience that leaders need.

I hope that iron can enter all our souls so that we can be more resilient in our lives and leadership capacities and ultimately achieve all the goals we have set for ourselves and our organizations.

I’d love to hear your thoughts, experience, or comments below.

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Structured Life, Structured Work, Structured Leadership

January 27, 2011 by

Structured Leadership

Harold Geneen the former CEO/President of ITT Corporation (International Telephone & Telegrah Corp.), once said, “Every company has two organizational structures: The formal one is written on the charts; the other is the everyday relationship of the men and women in the organization.” 

Whether we think it does or not; structure or the lack thereof in business causes great impacts on the effectiveness of our organizations.  I don’t believe as leaders we naturally think of structure and how we fix our structures when trying to solve business problems.  I think we often treat (fix) the symptoms of a lack of structure.

I learned years ago when I was Scout Master for a Boy Scout Troop that structure is essential to performance.  In boy scouts, performance is measured by kids advancing to the next rank or getting the next merit badge, or the ability to listen and follow directions and not get mauled by a mountain lion.  When there is chaos, the mind seems to be drawn to that chaos and chaos begets chaos.  Newton’s law of motion says “An object that is at rest will stay at rest unless an unbalanced force acts upon it“.  Have you ever had a messy room in your house, and noticed it got messier and messier until a force was acted on it?  The mess begets the mess.  You think, “screw it it is already messy” and you end up contributing to the mess. The same thing happens in business.  I think when things are orderly, organized, planned, (i.e. structured) and the lines are drawn in the sand; that people actually feel happier, more at peace, and more capable of performing. 

The idea in and of itself sounds counter-intuitive; imposing restrictions and setting boundaries, would seem to limit one’s ability to perform and achieve.  But the opposite is actually true.  I have to thank my wife for teaching this to me many years ago.  She was a first grade teacher and taught me that children are happier and more productive when they have structure.  Over the years I have observed children and noticed this effect and we have striven to provide structure to our child.  He lets us know when we are slipping. 🙂  I have noticed the positive and negative effects of structure and the lack of, in other children and businesses as well.

Structure can mean a lot of things in different situations in life and there are often outliers that might be the occasional exception.  I accept that.  I want to suggest a couple structures that I think are important to consider in leading a business.  These could also apply to one’s personal life.

5 Areas of Structured Leadership

1) Organizational Structure
2) Execution Structure  
3) Environmental Structure
4) Relationship Structure
5) Internal (Personal) Structure

Organizational Structure

The organizational structure can be looked at a couple of different ways. One way is the legal structure of a business; i.e. S-Corp, C-Corp, LLC, etc…  But as far as performance and leadership are concerned, people like to know how they fit into the organization of a company and how they can progress, well at least high performing individuals that want a career not a job.  Having something as simple as a organization chart is a start.  But it goes deeper; here are some questions to ask yourself:

  • Do you have a career path set-up for employees and do they understand it?
  • Do employees know how they can move up the ladder?
  • Do employees have a clear idea of who they report to?
  • Is there a purpose for the organization and does everyone know that purpose?

The organizational structure has to also provide some “hard edges”  or limits of what one can and can’t do.  Hiring someone and then saying, “Go at it” is a setup for failure.  Some questions to ask yourself:

  • Is there an on-boarding plan for each employee?
  • Do employees know the hard edges of their job? 
  • Do you have an updated employee manual?  
  • Does everyone understand the employee manual?
  • Does everyone know what is expected of them?

This is just touching the surface, but organizational structure, I think, is often something that leaders love or hate to deal with.  But it really is one of the foundation stones to a successful business.

Execution Structure

Execution structure is the “HOW”.  It is the processes and procedures for getting from A to B.  I think this is one of the most important structures in business.  In Boy Scouts, when earning a merit badge, it is very clear on exactly what has to be done.  Following are the first few requirements for earning the “American Business” merit badge:

Do the Following:
a. Explain four features of the free enterprise system in the United States.  Tell its benefits and responsibilities.  Describe the difference between freedom and license. Tell how the Scout Oath and Law apply to business and free enterprise.
b. Describe the Industrial Revolution:  Tell about the major developments that marked the start of the modern industrial era in the United States.  Tell about five people who had a great influence on business or industry in the United States.  Tell what each did.

Do the Following:
a. Visit a bank.  Talk with one of the officers or staff.  Chart the organization of the bank.  Show its relationship with other banks, business and industry.
b. Explain how changes in interest rates, taxes, and government spending affect the flow of money into or out of business and industry.
c. Explain how a proprietorship or partnership gets its capital. Discuss and explain four ways a corporation gets its capital.
d. Explain the place of profit in business.
e. Name five kinds of insurance useful to business.  Describe their purposes

Imagine how successful staff would be with that kind of structure.  Of course they need to be empowered to make changes and adapt if the need arises, but I think execution strategy is taken for granted, especially in small business, probably because it is one of the more difficult things for people to conceptualize and document.  Documenting the most important processes in a company gives people order.  It makes hiring easier and firing easier.  It makes for a more efficient organization.

Environmental Structure

Walk into company or in a CEO’s office and you will quickly be able to tell how much environmental structure is in place, but you can also generally tell the status of the other structure’s.  Messy offices, files that are not filed, boxes in the halls, desks that are unorganized, all display the culture and environmental structure of a company.  I may get called out on this, but I do not believe anyone works better in chaos.  I know many people that if you took them from their normally messy office and put them in a clean and organized office would have difficulty because of the change, but not for the lack of chaos.  Meaning they used to know where things are and now they do not.

The environmental structure sounds superficial but is really important.  If you are culture like Google, who values innovation and creative thinking at work, then your environmental structure should be setup that way, and theirs is.  If you are a law firm dealing with clients who expect order and professionalism; then that is how the environmental structures should be setup.  The way you and your people dress and groom, how the phone is answered, what time people come into work, are all important aspect of environmental structure.  Virtual organizations can still have environmental structure as well.  Walk around your office and look around and ask yourself; if I knew nothing about my company, what would I think of it by what I see now?  The truth can be scary.

Relationship Structure

I’d like to think of relationship structure as the interpersonal behavior that exists in an organization.  There is a plethora of research out there about why people quit and why people hate their jobs.  Many studies often lead to how one was treated and communicated to.  While I think most would like to erase emotion to some degree and have more rigidity, it is important to have a relationship structure that fosters, positive interpersonal communication and behavior.  Some questions to consider:

  • Do people yell at your company, do you?
  • How does the staff interact with each other?
  • Is feedback asked for and accepted by both the leader and the direct report?
  • Is there healthy conflict in meetings and is that conflict fostered and encouraged?
  • Is there unhealthy conflict that leads to hurt feelings and stress?

Someone once said, “Leave the drama for your mama”, great advice for working relationships.  This does not mean you should not have conflict; you just need to have the right kind of conflict.  Probably not the most enjoyable “structure” for a leader to deal with, but necessary nonetheless. 

Internal (Personal) Structure

The internal structure of employees is not something that you can really control, but you sure the heck can control who you hire.  You want people working for you that live your values, that live your culture, and that actually have some form of internal structure that mirrors the culture of your organization.  If your company values a well-groomed and professional appearance, you will want to hire people that naturally feel comfortable in that kind of attire; otherwise you will be fighting it forever.  If you value ongoing learning and skill advancement, then you want people that like to read and want to progress and are humble enough to admit they have more to learn and actually want to learn.  There are many examples of how internal structure can affect your company culture and the ability to execute.  As Jim Collins said in Good to Great, you have to “get the right people on the bus.”

I think that creating and fostering the improvement of all five of these structures in business is one huge slice of the leadership pie and invaluable to a successful business if you do not want it to resemble the weak, breaking building in the picture above.

Please leave a comment and let me know your thoughts and if there are any “structures” you think I might be missing.

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