From Bud To Boss – Transitioning to Remarkable Leadership

February 15, 2011 by

LeadershipI recently had the chance to review a pre-release copy of a book by Kevin Eikenberry and Guy Harris, called From Bud to Boss: Secrets To A Successful Transition to Remarkable Leadership.

I found the book to be one of the most detailed and functional books I have seen on the topic of transitioning oneself from an employee or manager to a real leader.  I had the opportunity to interface with Kevin and get some more information about the book.  Following are some of the questions and answers I received.   By the way, today happens to be the launch day of From Bud to Boss and they have some great gifts and contests running.  This is all listed at the end. 

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Who will benefit from reading your book? (or Who should read this book?)

(Kevin)  – There are really three groups of people who will benefit the most from this book.  The first, as the title implies, are people in the transition, or have been living through the transition from being a peer to delivering a performance evaluation!  The second group is people who want to prepare themselves proactively for the role of leadership.  These people are anticipating or planning for their first leadership role.  The last group is more experienced leaders who are preparing or helping new leaders to be more successful.

The first section of the book is specifically about the transition, and the other five sections deal with the most important competencies to focus on building leadership competence and confidence.

What are the Remarkable Leadership Principles?

(Kevin)  – This book contains the ” Remarkable Principles” also mentioned in the book  Remarkable Leadership.  These are bite-sized truths that summarize pieces of the text, but they do much more than that.  They stand alone, informing all of us leaders of important and in some cases, profound truths about the work of leadership and what is most important about it.  Here is an example from Chapter 41 – “The single biggest reason to set goals is that they improve your chances for success.”  This reminds readers of an important principle, and we hope spurs all of us to act to not only set goals more often, but be successful in helping others set them as well.  After all, who doesn’t want greater success in some part of their life?

What was your first leadership experience? What training/support did you receive in the transition?

(Kevin) – My first leadership role was on our family farm and related business.  Often when people were hired to a specific task or season, I was responsible for supervising them.  In many cases (as is the case for many who will read the book) I was much younger than those I was leading.   I didn’t have any formal training.  Dad didn’t give me any book to read.  He was an example and role model.  We did talk about how things were going and answered questions.   He would have been the first to tell you he wasn’t the perfect leader, yet he was extremely supportive and aware of the need to coach others.

What are the core skills people need in order to make a successful transition to leadership in their organizations?

(Kevin) – Beyond the skills and strategies of the transition itself, we believe there are five big competency areas that need to come first, and we built the book around them.   They are:  change, communication, coaching, collaboration and teamwork, and commitment to success (everything related to goals and goal setting).

These aren’t the only competencies of leaders but we believe they are of prime importance for two reasons.
1.    They are highly important and complex skills to learn
2.   When someone first becomes a leader these skills take on a very different meaning or level of importance in their work and life.

What do you think is the biggest gap in training new leaders?

(Kevin)  – I think there are two gaps.   First, most new supervisor/leader training doesn’t talk at all about the issues of the transition. How do I lead the people I am friends with?  How do I deal with the team members who applied for and wanted the job I received?  How do I maintain and manage those expectations?  How do I build relationships with my new peers, new boss?  And much more.

Second, while there is lots of great training available publicly and inside of organizations, it is often available later than would best help the new leaer, and far too often doesn’t focus enough on application.  Learning can’t happen just by attending class (or reading a book for that matter) we must take that new knowledge and use it.

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I think Bud to Boss is one of the most detailed and practical guides I have seen on developing leadership and refining one’s leadership skills.   I highly recommend you pick-up a copy.  You can buy From Bud to Boss at Amazon and other online retailers.   After you buy the book, you need to go to Kevin and Guy’s website and community and register your purchase. (http://launch.budtobosscommunity.com/#getstarted) By doing so you will receive a boat load of free gifts and be entered to win some great prizes.

As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments below.

Filed Under: Remarkable Leadership Tagged With: , , , , ,

How A Group Of Frogs Became A Story About Developing Leaders

February 11, 2011 by

Steph Robey put this video together based on a classic story of frogs traveling through the woods.  The video talks about developing leaders.  While this was made for home based businesses it still has two important lessons that apply to all leaders.

  1. Words Have the Power of Life & Death
  2. It Takes the Power of a Leader to Speak Life

It is a great little video that I know you will enjoy.  Those two lessons carry a lot of meaning.  Please comment and share your thoughts.

Filed Under: Developing Leaders Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

As A Leader, Do you Fulfill Dreams or Create Nightmares?

February 8, 2011 by

Summer Dream

Have you ever read a book or heard a speech and the idea that was presented made you kick yourself and think, why did I not think of that?  Well that is how I felt after reading The Dream Manager by Matthew Kelly a few months ago.

The book is written as a business fable.  For those that have not discovered business fables they are  a great format for helping one to visualize a methodology and how it will play out in an organization.  They also are pretty easy reads between the more monotonous reads that business books can sometimes be.

Anyways, the book follows a fictional janitorial service company.  The company has horrible turnover and horrible employee engagement.  I will not spoil it for you, but the book goes through a simplistic yet powerful method that simply deals with helping others fulfill their dreams.

The reason why I kicked myself is because this is something I already do with colleagues and friends.  I have given referrals and testimonials, made connections and helped colleagues in a wide range of areas to help them fulfill their dreams, but never thought of doing this for my employees.  I felt pretty stupid.

So let’s think about this.  Say you have an employee, let’s call him John.  Through some discussions you learn that John has always wanted to take his family to Walt Disney World.  To John, this seems like an impossible feet of which he will never have the time nor the money to bring his dream to fruition. 

So you dig into your contacts and realize you have a colleague in Orlando.  You call him up and through the conversation you come to find he has a guest house.  You tell your colleague of what you are doing and he tells you that the guest house is his for 2 weeks if he comes during the off-season.

You then figure out with John what his expenses will be and you use your financial skills to teach him about budgeting, and you plan out a savings plan for the next year to get the money needed.  You help him find deals online and as the time draws near you make sure that his duties are taken care of at work and home and you send him off.

It did not cost you a dime, other than your time.  How grateful do you think John will be?  Also, before I go too far, do not think that you can replace proper compensation with helping employees fulfill their dreams.  Properly compensating staff is a given.

Let’s say you have another employee that has always wanted to own a home.  To them the idea of owning a home is something that they will never see.  You once again dive into your contacts and find a realtor that specializes in low-income housing.  This realtor puts you in contact with a mortgage broker that specializes in such situations.  You work with this employee and put them in touch with your financial advisor who helps them to budget and get a savings plan together.

As their savings grows and they see you truly care about them, what do you think happens with their engagement?

The ideas are endless, I think as leaders we naturally are problem solvers.  But we are so busy solving problems for our company, that we do nothing to solve problems for our staff.  Yet if we actually showed them we cared, the financial benefits to our organizations are unlimited.  Our employees are the ones on the front-line.  They see things we do not always see.  If you think about them and help them, they will generally think about us and will help to make sure our organizations are successful.

We all have dreams we want out of life.  Some of them are big and some are small.  I think we all have some of both.  As leaders I think we naturally have the knowledge and network to make things happen, but I think to the disengaged employee that thinks you do not care about them, their dreams are just that.    We have the knowledge and resources to coach and help our staff fulfill dreams that we may take for granted.

In the book, What Got You Here, Won’t Get You There, by Marshall Goldsmith, he states: “In the past, the key to wealth may have been control of land, material, plants, and tools.  In that environment, the worker needed the company more than the company needed the worker.  Today, the key to wealth is knowledge.  As a result, the company needs the knowledge worker far more than the knowledge worker needs them.  To make matters worse, they know this!  They see themselves as fungible assets – no longer at the mercy of the company whim – rather than dispensable commodities.  The difference is real: As a fungible asset, the free agent sees himself as always getting a better job somewhere else; if he were merely a commodity, anyone could replace him (which we know is not true anymore).”

I read What Got You Here, Won’t Get You There, after The Dream Manager and that paragraph hit me hard. Leaders that see their employees as fungible assets will find themselves leading mediocre organizations and will have problems with employee engagement, low morale and possibly turn-over.  While leaders that understand and value their employees to the extent of helping them fulfill their dreams, will find employees that are engaged, happy and willing to help the organization succeed.

This concept of The Dream Manager does not diminish the value of accountability and execution, but it may help you realize why those items might not be as high as they should b.  I challenge you to look back at your career and think about how The Dream Manager concept could have been helpful for you and then, become a dream manager yourself.

Please comment and let me know your thoughts.

Filed Under: Dream / Nightmare Leadership Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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.

Filed Under: Structured Leadership Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Welcome to A Slice of Leadership, Let it begin…

January 25, 2011 by

LeadershipWell here I go! Those that know me know I am somewhat opinionated, so I decided that the best outlet to express those opinions would be here on my very own leadership blog.  I am passionate about leadership, efficiency and execution.  I am a voracious reader of any book on leadership, management, communications, team building, time-management, execution and just about anything else in the business realm.  

In this leadership blog, I plan on sharing my thoughts on well…leadership and management and all the many facets that those two concepts envelop.  Each post will be a small “slice” of an area that falls under the big “pie” of leadership.   I will also bring guests to the blog, such as authors and business leaders, that can bring more value to the information I share and can bring a perspective that others might enjoy and find helpful.

I do not know what will come of this leadership blog or if anyone out there will find it interesting, but I hope that it serves some purpose in helping others be successful in their careers. I know I have a lot to learn and that things are constantly changing, so all I have to say for now is, “Let the ride begin.”

Filed Under: It Begins Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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