Mworld Fall 2014

M W RLDThe Journal of the American Management Association Volume 13, Number 3 Fall 2014www.amanet.org

OTHER ARTICLES

Managing Paradox from the Front Line to the Top Line

The X Factor in Successful Acquisitions: Gettingthe Human Side Right

The Innovator’s Manual: Eight Tools for FosteringInnovation

From Effective Action to Strategic Vision: Transitioning to the C-Suite

Four Tools of Ethical Management

Executing the Strategic Plan: Five Actions MidlevelLeaders Can Take

Becoming an Energy Director to Lead and Achieve

Developing 21st-Century Leadership Skills

The Generic Leader Network and the “AcceptanceApp”

Brian Tracy onAchieving Unlimited Sales Success

Brian Tracy

OUR VIEWThere’s No PlaceLike the Classroom

SOUNDINGSData Holds the Key toSuccessful Management

COMMENTARYPrescription Price Controls: Fear Us, Not the Government

CREATIVE INSIGHTSSeven Scientific Principles ThatTurbocharge Presentations

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Developing 21st-Century Leadership Skills.Companies are facing new leadership challenges, includingdeveloping millennials and multiple generations of leaders andacquiring new levels of understanding of rapidly changingtechnologies. By Adam Canwell, Vishalli Dongrie, Neil Neveras, and Heather Stockton.

The Generic Leader Network and the“Acceptance App.” Accepting your own potential willnot automatically open doors for you, but it will allow you to seethe opportunities that stand before you. By Robert C. McMillan.

Managing Paradox from the Front Line to theTop Line. In large organizations, most frontline employeesare still trained to solve puzzles but to try to move paradoxesupward. By David Dotlich, PhD.

The X Factor in Successful Acquisitions: Gettingthe Human Side Right. The reason why most mergersfail is that a highly important component of M&A activity hasbeen overlooked: the “human element.” By Stephen W. Shippee.

The Innovator’s Manual: Eight Tools forFostering Innovation. For innovation to become afunctional approach to company growth, it must be more thanjust a buzzword. To truly support a culture of innovation,leaders should focus on eight critical skills. By Don Mroz, PhD.

From Effective Action to Strategic Vision:Transitioning to the C-Suite. Achieving success in theC-suite requires clarity of purpose, an understanding of thebroader business, inspirational leadership, and an ability toanticipate and adapt quickly to change. By Gail Angelo.

Four Tools of Ethical Management. These tools will help you get others to agree with you without assessing the penalties associated with less effective, more manipulativeapproaches to influencing others. By Mark Pastin.

Executing the Strategic Plan: Five ActionsMidlevel Leaders Can Take. Although senior leadersmay be responsible for developing the strategic plan, it is theresponsibility of midlevel leaders to translate this strategy intooperational-level plans and actions that will result in executionthroughout the organization. By Daniel Jensen, PhD.

Becoming an Energy Director to Lead andAchieve.What is the role of a manager in optimizingemployee energy and directing that energy at objectives whichare important to the organization? It’s a key topic for anyonewho needs to lead people or projects and achieve success. By Theresa M. Welbourne, PhD.

2 FROM THE EDITORThe Facets of Leaders

3 COMMENTARYPrescription Price Controls: Fear Us, Not theGovernment. Let’s take charge of our own destiny and grapple with the problem ourselves. By Sander A. Flaum.

4 SOCIAL COMMENTARYWhy Strong Relationships Matter. To cultivate winningrelationships, you need to get to know the person behind theonline account. By Morag Barrett.

24 SOUNDINGSData Holds the Key to Successful Management.Today’s managers can leverage a vast amount of data to equiptheir organization and collect a constant stream of data aboutpeople, projects, work, and the business environment. By Leerom Segal, Jay Goldman, and Rahaf Harfoush.

31 CREATIVE INSIGHTSSeven Scientific Principles That TurbochargePresentations. The most popular TED presentations shareseveral common elements that are based on the science of persuasion. By Carmine Gallo.

48 OUR VIEW There’s No Place Like the Classroom. By Edward T. Reilly.

BRIAN TRACY ON ACHIEVING UNLIMITED SALES SUCCESS.Brian Tracy, chairman and CEO of Brian Tracy International, talksabout one of his recent books, Unlimited Sales Success: 12 SimpleSteps for Selling More Than You Ever Thought Possible, and sharessome secrets about improving sales performance. PAGE 6

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F R O M T H E E D I T O R

MWorldThe Journal of the

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GUEST EDITORChristiane Truelove

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COPY EDITOREileen Davis

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MWorld© (ISSN 1540-2991) is published quarterly by AmericanManagement Association International, 1601 Broadway, New York, NY10019-7420, Fall 2014, Volume 13, Number 3. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to American Management Association, 600 AMA Way, Saranac Lake, NY 12983-5534.

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Hello, everyone. Allow me to introduce myselfas the guest editor of MWorld. As a newspaperjournalist and editor in chief of a B2B maga-zine focused on the pharmaceutical industry,

I’ve had the opportunity to interview many managers in theindustry and have written many articles about how these execu-tives are leading their companies and facing today’s challenges.This issue is packed full of interesting articles about leader-

ship—how to lead, the best ways to manage, and even the best waysto use data as a management tool. No matter what industry you arein, you’ll find valuable insights you can apply in your workplace. To track down and predict problems at a company, executives

may want to note “Data Holds the Key to Successful Management,”by Leerom Segal, Jay Goldman, and Rahaf Harfoush. Segal andGoldman, executives at the digital ad agency Klick Health, andHarfoush, an author and lecturer, wrote The Decoded Company,which talks about how companies can use data to improve opera-tions. A visit to Klick’s offices in Toronto shows how the agencycontinuously gathers data about its employees, from their move-ment from floor to floor as they work on projects to the amount ofcoffee consumed in the breakrooms. For Klick’s managers, data onemployee movement can translate to a more efficient execution ofwork for clients, and data on coffee consumption leads to well-stocked breakrooms, which increase employee satisfaction and, inturn, assist with retention.There’s also David Dotlich’s “Managing Paradox from the

Front Line to the Top Line.” Dotlich examines how frontlineemployees need to be able to handle paradoxes as well as puzzles.Because many customer issues today are paradoxes, customer-facing employees must be trained to handle these problems toavoid a social media meltdown. In addition, good leadership skills need to be cultivated in

every facet of a company. For managers on the sales side, thecover story/Q&A with Brian Tracy of Brian Tracy Internationaladdresses how to achieve sales leadership. Tracy gives practicaltips based on his book Unlimited Sales Success (AMACOM,2013) that are so effective AMA has developed a new seminarbased on the book.This issue of MWorld should hold information you can use

on, and maybe even off, the job. Our next issue will look at thechallenges faced by women in leadership and how these issuescan be addressed.

The Facets ofLeaders

Christiane TrueloveGuest Editor, MWorld

have the potential to causelong-term harm to ourhealthcare system, not only byundermining the role ofphysicians but also by remov-ing the incentive to develop new drugs.Maybe this is a wake-up for more involvement. I

recently learned of a survey conducted by a groupcalled eyeforpharma. (You can find the survey, The Industry Healthcheck, at eyeforpharma.com/ download/content-healthcheck.php and download itfor free.) They quizzed some 1,600 pharma executivesfrom around the world and found beliefs that may bethe seeds of tomorrow’s trends.For me, the most striking finding was that nearly

75% of executives predicted that pharma companieswill need to enter the business ofactually providing healthcare, and85% believed they will need tobecome more patient-centric.

A model in which the pharmaindustry helps to deliver healthcarecouldn’t be worse than our currentmodel, with its baffling maze ofregulations and an antiquatedFDA, which lacks the tools, teeth,and courage to cope with the new

drugs and drug combina-tions that are being mintedalmost monthly by thegenomic revolution. Perhaps it’s time to blue-sky

about how we in the pharma industrycan move beyond the industry we grew up in

and adopt a model in which we actually help providehealthcare solutions. It’s really our choice. Will weallow PBMs and their counterparts to push us aroundlike the government bureaucracies we’ve alwaysfeared? Or will we take charge of our own destiny andgrapple with the tough problems ourselves? MW

Sander Flaum is principal of Flaum Navigators, where he

encourages and coaches his clients to embrace disruptive

innovation in marketing, sales, and leadership.


Anyone connected to healthcare knows that costs areout of control. Of course, most of the increases aredue to skyrocketing hospital costs, but I’m inpharma, so let’s focus on drugs. The UK tries to holddown costs with its National Institute for Health andCare Excellence, but in the United States we’ll neversee Medicare jawboning down the price of medicine.Nor would we ever want to. So what’s the answer?A recent approach is coming from pharmacy

benefit managers (PBMs). Since it’s now against thelaw for insurers to drop patients who become ill andexclude those who already are, they’ve been lookingfor ways to protect their pockets. Insurers aren’tafraid of the new generation of lifesaving biologicsthat cost $200,000 a year and up. What terrifies them are the ancient billion-dollar brands, such asGlaxoSmithKline’s Advair Diskus, that remain protected from generic competition.This year, Express Scripts, the country’s largest

PBM, struck a deal with AstraZeneca. Inreturn for a contracted price onSymbicort and other drugs inAstraZeneca’s respiratory franchise,Express Scripts would drop Advair andother GlaxoSmithKline respiratorydrugs from its formulary. Thismeans that if your insuranceprovider uses Express Scriptsas a PBM, you’ll have to payevery dime out of pocket ifyou’re prescribed Advair. It’s as ifExpress Scripts had announced:“As far as we’re concerned, these two drugs aretherapeutically equivalent, and we’re only going topay for Symbicort. If your doctor writes Advair, you’dbetter ask for another Rx.”Although the New York Times typically lauds any

attack on a pharma company, in an editorial appearingon June 24, 2014, the paper was wringing its hands:“Regulators need to watch out that insurers, in theirzeal to curb drug costs, don’t block patients from med-icines they need when an alternative is not adequate.”Well, duh! We’ve been shouting from the rooftop

that vendettas focused on price and blind to value

Prescription Price Controls: Fear Us, Not the Government BY SANDER A. FLAUM

Sander A. Flaum

C O M M E N T A R Y


S O C I A L C O M M E N T A R Y

In a recent article, the HarvardBusiness Review reported thatsocial bonds were the majorpredictor of team success. Theother two were “initiatives to

strengthen relationships” and “leaders who invest thetime to build strong relationships with their teams.”If team success (and individual success) is

dependent upon social bonds, then it would followthat getting to know team members and articulatingthe rules of engagement for the team are goodinvestments of time, right? Rules of engagement sup-port strong relationships by anticipating how teammembers will interact with each other as they workon projects and pursue goals.But in the age of technology, creating social bonds

is much easier said than done. Email has becomeubiquitous, to the point that it actually underminesperformance. In a recent program presented by myteam, leaders reported that they receive several hundred emails a day. This technology keeps leaderstied to their desks and prevents the creation ofmeaningful connections at work.I experienced this situation when I worked in a

large telecommunications firm where an egalitarianenvironment backfired. We were a company of cubicles. You could walk through corridors but notsee anyone. People used email to chat with teammembers sitting 20 feet away, and we wondered whyco-workers didn’t have real bonds.Contrast this with another workplace that was

completely open: no walls, no hiding, and noexcuses. Team members could simply raise theirheads and talk to the person next to them. It led to amuch different culture, where camaraderie and teamrelationships flourished.Don’t get me wrong. We still needed time away

from the hubbub of the office and private places to

hold confidential conversations. I’m not suggestingthat you start knocking down walls to build relation-ships (although, now that I think of it, yes I am—themetaphorical walls that prevent us from getting toknow the person in the next office).My experience in both of these environments

shaped my credo: “Get off your butt and go talk tosomeone!”As you set out to create social bonds, be wary of

the perception that building relationships is “soft andfluffy.” This perception leads us to undervalue thetime needed to focus on the interpersonal side ofbusiness. I remember being told early in my financecareer, “This is a business; there is no place here foremotions or personal connections. It’s not personal.”Given this manager’s philosophy, it’s little wonderthat trust within the company’s teams declined andconfidence in the team leader was diminished.Another key element in building strong relation-

ships is to create—and follow—the rules of engage-ment. In many cases, even when teams get togetherto plan how they’ll achieve a goal, they simply gothrough the motions of creating working agreementsand clarifying goals and roles, then promptly ignorethem when they get back to their desks.We all know when the rules of engagement in a

workplace have been broken. We sit in meetingsdrumming our fingers and clenching our teeth infrustration. We vent to our families and friends, butwe remain silent at work. We don’t air our concernsfor fear of facing repercussions or making an alreadystressful situation worse.We justify and excuse the situation because no one

Why Strong Relationships MatterBY MORAG BARRETT

Morag Barrett

“Having virtual connections

does not equal having effective

working relationships.”


S O C I A L C O M M E N T A R Y

else is speaking up. We believe it’s the way things haveto be, and we don’t want to go against the grain. Weavoid tough conversations with the very people whocould effect change—our colleagues—and even withourselves.Invariably, the inability to “talk it out” causes the

situation to worsen until the relationship is so damaged there is little hope for reconciliation, atwhich point one or both parties leave the organization.You’ve seen it happen—perhaps in your own career.

When you set the rules of engage-ment at the start of a relationship orproject, you can ask for what you

need to be successful and more easily course-correctwhen things go off track. Notice that I said “when,” not“if.” I’ve worked for managers (and colleagues) whoassumed I could read their minds, only to come downon me like a ton of bricks when my sixth sense fizzled.And I’ve been guilty of this same reaction myself.Articulating the rules of engagement sets you up

for success, both on the good days when things aregoing well and, more important, during the turbulenttimes when many of us revert back to inappropriatebehaviors—micromanaging, command and control,and passive-aggressiveness, to name a few.The following steps can help you create rules of

engagement:� Ensure that the two parties are in agreement

about the objectives to be achieved� Agree on levels of authority and decision-mak-

ing responsibilities� Articulate roles and responsibilities� Understand individual personalities and com-

munication and decision-making styles, where theseare in alignment and where they may be different,and how values and behaviors will be important tosuccess

� Establish meeting cadence—where and howoften meetings will occur

� Agree on an escalation process, determiningwhen and who to ask for help or provide warnings ofimpending disaster

� Set feedback and coaching expectationsBy learning to set expectations, you’ll find clarity

about who you can rely on for advice and who can bea filter for tough decisions. Your team will also knowwho can be called on when you don’t know how tosolve a problem.

RULES OFENGAGEMENT

Cultivating winning relationshipsisn’t just about getting businessresults today; it’s also about the qual-

ity of your working relationships and your networkoverall. Are you on a path to deliver long-term successin your career aspirations? As has always been thecase, “who knows you” trumps “who you know.” Intoday’s hyperconnected world, this reality is evenmore pertinent.With LinkedIn, you are only a few degrees

removed from a hiring manager. Trust me, the savvyrecruiters are reaching out to your connections fortheir perspective. In this environment, you must domore than collect business cards, Facebook “likes,” orLinkedIn connections. You must be thoughtful aboutdeveloping your brand. Remember, however, that even when you use

social media or a similar company tool to build con-nections within your organization, having virtualconnections does not equal having effective workingrelationships. To cultivate winning relationships, youneed to get to know the person behind the onlineaccount. Your success depends on it. As it turns out,business is personal—and relationships do matter.

Morag Barrett is the author of Cultivate: The Power of

Winning Relationships (Franklin Green, 2014) and the

founder of SkyeTeam, an international HR consulting and

leadership development company. Barrett's experience ranges

from senior executive coaching to developing teams across

Europe, America, and Asia. SkyeTeam works with clients in a

range of industries, including healthcare, telecom, mining,

manufacturing, engineering, and technology. For more infor-

mation, visit www.skyeteam.com

WHO KNOWSYOU?


Brian Tracy is chairman and CEO

of Brian Tracy International,

a company specializing in the training

and development of individuals

and organizations.

As a keynote speaker and seminar leader, he addresses more than250,000 people each year. He is the top-selling author of more than45 books that have been translated into dozens of languages. One ofhis most recent books, written with his son Michael Tracy, isUnlimited Sales Success: 12 Simple Steps for Selling More Than YouEver Thought Possible (AMACOM, 2013). In collaboration withTracy, AMA has developed a new seminar based on the book.

The seminar is titled Unlimited Sales Success: Mastering the New Realities of Selling.

AMA spoke to Tracy recently about the book and about the “secret” to sales success.

You’ve written many books on various management and sales topics. Why this book, and why now?

Brian Tracy:Many books about sales go into what I consider very complex models of selling,whereas the selling model which I have taught to more than 2 million people worldwide is verystraightforward. I’ve had countless people say that this model has taken them from rags to riches.It’s taken their companies from struggling to being top companies in the industry. It’s a very simplemodel, and I teach it all over the world. People just walk out and their sales double and triple.

I decided it’s time to get back to basics, the really critical skills. It’s sort of like if you’re going tobuild a tall building, you build a deep foundation. Well, many people start furnishing theoffices before they’ve built the building. This book provides the foundation on which allsubsequent selling can be built.

How can a salesperson figure out which skills or behaviors are responsible for limiting his orher success? And which ones, based on your experience, are the most prevalent?

BT: I do a little exercise to help people identify their weakest sales skill. I say, “Imagine youcould wave a magic wand, and overnight you could be absolutely excellent at any one salesskill. Which one skill would help you the most to double your sales and double yourincome? Surprisingly enough, it’s like a heat-seeking missile: Whichever skill they identifythat could help them the most to double their income is their weakest key skill. It’s their

COVER STORY

Brian Tracy on Achieving

Brian Tracy


limiting skill to sales success. And so they write it down and I have them discuss it with thepeople around them.

I tell people this: You have to understand that all sales skills, all business skills, are learnable.You can learn any skill that you need to learn, once you’ve identified what it is. Just likebuilding a house or going to the grocery store, you make a list and you plan out your ownlittle learning curriculum to develop that skill. And a month, six months, a year from now, ifyou just work at it every day, you will absolutely excel in that skill and your income will havedoubled and tripled.

That’s sound advice for anyone who’s having career problems.

BT:Well, yes. I heard this just yesterday at a meeting: “My biggest problem is hiring a keyperson. I’ve gone through five people in that position in one year, and I’ve learned howimportant it is to fire fast.” So the question is, why are you having such a hard time hiring? Theanswer is you don’t know how to do it. The skill of selecting the right people is one of the mostimportant skills for success in business. If you cannot do it, you have no future; you’re basicallyfinished. But it’s a learnable skill.

The great danger is the old talk about levels of competence. There is the “unconsciouscompetent,” the person who does not know and does not know that they do not know. Theycan’t be helped. This is the worst case of all. People say, “Well, I know how to hire. You justbring somebody in, you chat with them for a while, and you listen to your gut and so on.”Absolutely not. In management, hiring the right people—and every single successful companyknows this—is as much as 90% or 95% of business success. It is a very definite and verylearnable skill. So every person has to ask, “What one skill, if I was excellent at it, would havethe greatest positive impact on my career?” And then you just go learn it.

How should a salesperson handle the dreaded fear of rejection?

BT:We have found this to be the greatest single obstacle to success. Daniel Pink, in his book ToSell Is Human, calls it “facing the ocean of rejection.” You have to realize that when a personrejects you or your offer, it’s not personal. It has to do with them, their own opinions and ideas,and a thousand other things. So don’t worry about it. Just keep proceeding with completeconfidence that if you keep going, you will be successful. And eventually, as Shakespeare said,“Take action against the sea of troubles, and in so doing end them.”

When you take action and do the opposite of what you would do if you had feared rejection,and instead you just dare to go forward, the fear disappears. Just keep talking to yourself: “Ican do it. I can do it. I like myself. I like myself. I’m the best. I’m the best. I’ve done this before.I can do it again.” Just keep feeding your mind a steady stream of positive messages.

How do you define a good prospect?

BT: One of the things salespeople have to understand is, you don’t find somebody and talkthem into buying your product. You find somebody who already wants and needs your

Unlimited Sales Success


product, and you show them that your product is the best choice, all things considered.

Good prospects have one or more of four qualities:

1. They have a need that your product can satisfy immediately. One of the jokes that I useis, imagine you sell hand-held fire extinguishers and you meet a person whose hair is on fire.That’s a good prospect. They have an immediate need for your product. They want to buy itnow, they need it now. And when a person has an intense need, they are far less price-sensitive.

2. They have a problem that your product will solve. In fact, we say in selling, your job is tofind people who have a problem that your product will solve for them in a cost-effective way.Because once a person concludes that you are the solution to his problem, the sale is made.

3. They have a goal that your problem can help them achieve. For example, financial servicesare a trillion-dollar industry. What is the goal? People want to earn more money on theirmoney, and they want to be financially secure and financially independent. They want to haveenough money so they don’t worry about money. You can show them that your financialservices will help them reach a point where they are financially stable and never have to worryabout money again, that your services are the very best way of achieving that goal.

4. They have a problem, they have a pain, or they have a concern. They have something that’sreally concerning them that you can help them solve. For example, if you’re selling personnelservices, their biggest problem may be that they don’t have a key person in a key job, and thisis a pain that causes them a lot of distress. You can say, “Look, I can help you find exactly theright person for that job. I can take your pain away.”

In addition to these four qualities, the person must want it, the person must need it, the personmust be able to use it, and the person must be able to afford it. I tell people to spend more timewith better prospects. And if you find yourself with a poor prospect, recognize this as a poorprospect and cut it off quickly. Say, “You know, I think that this is really not the right choice foryou at this time, and so thank you very much for your time. I know how busy you are. I’ll letyou get back to work.” Remember, every minute you spend with a poor prospect is a minutethat you are taking away from a good prospect.

Here’s the question every salesperson wants to ask you: How do you close the sale?

BT:Well, we say that you sell without selling. If you sell professionally, the close almost takescare of itself; all you really have to do is confirm. A good presentation means that after youhave interviewed the customer, like a doctor doing an examination, you then feed back to thecustomer, “Based on what you’ve told me, I think that what we have would be a good choice foryou. Let me explain what it is and how it works.” So you don’t actually sell, you teach. And byteaching, you persuade indirectly.

There are two parts of an effective presentation that lead to the close. The first is called “show,tell, and ask questions.” You show the customer, this is a ballpoint pen. You can use this to writeon any surface. Is this something that would be of value to you in your business? Show what itis, tell what it does, and ask for feedback. For every single feature, attach a benefit, and then aska question for feedback, so that the customer is completely engaged.

The key to an effective presentation is to match your product, like fingers in a glove, with thecustomer’s stated needs. You say, “You said you needed this, and this will do that. And you saidyou needed this, and this will do that.” Because the rule is that people don’t argue with their


own data. If they said they need it, and you say, “Well, this will doit,” they’re not going to argue with you; they’re going to agree.

The second way of presenting is to point out what your productfeatures and benefits are. You say, “Because of this” (you explain aproduct feature), “you can” (you explain a product benefit),“which means” (you explain a customer benefit). “Because of thislow price, you can purchase more of them, which means you getgreater satisfaction.” “Because of this...you can...which means,”which is one of the most powerful, persuasive, three-barreltechniques ever discovered, in any language.

Now, how do you close the sale? At the end of the conversation,you simply ask the question, “Mr. Prospect, does this make sense toyou so far? Do you like what I’ve shown you?” If the prospect says“Yes, it makes sense” or “Yes, I like it,” then you say, “Well, then, let’sget started.” You simply confirm that the prospect agrees that this isa good choice, and you wrap up the sale.

So you’re very open about that, when you wrap it up.

BT:Yes. You treat your customers like they are intelligent, smart, educated. You treat them withrespect and position yourself in the sales conversation as a helper. Your job is to help themenjoy benefits in a cost-effective way that they would not have enjoyed without you.

Now, the research says that the perceived value to the customer is the difference between the priceyou charge and the benefit that they receive. So the price that you charge is largely fixed. So whatyou do is emphasize the benefit or benefits the customer will enjoy that will improve his or herlife or work. And the more you emphasize benefits, the more you increase the perceived benefits,the less sensitive the customer is to the price, the more likely he is to buy immediately.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

BT: The most important part of selling is activity, call frequency, and calling on more people.Many people ask me, how can I double my income? And I say, well, double the minutes that you’respending face to face with prospects today. Double the number of people you talk to on a daily andweekly basis. Organize your entire life, starting from first thing in the morning, so that you’retalking to more people and you’re spending more face-to-face minutes with them. If you doublethat, you will double your income based on the law of averages and the law of probabilities.

Additionally, once you are face to face with a prospect, make sure that you are a thoroughlyskilled, professional salesperson. It’s absolutely astonishing, the 80/20 rule applies: The top 20%of salespeople make 80% of the sales and earn 80% of the money. What this means statisticallyis that the top 20% earn, on average, 16 times that of the people in the bottom 80%. Here’swhy: They have better sales skills and they use them more often. MW

Learn more of Brian Tracy’s sales secrets by attending the AMA seminar Unlimited Sales Success: Mastering

the New Realities of Selling (www.amanet.org/5205).


Managing ParadoxFrom the Front Line to the Top LineBY DAVID DOTLICH, PhD

On a recent business trip, I had two experiences that illustrated

the complexity of leading people in organizations today.

In one case, I was staying at a well-known hotel chain when I entered the hotel restaurant and,with no one at the host desk, waited a few minutes and then seated myself at one of manyempty tables. Within a few moments, a server came by and asked me in a very concerned tone,“Did the host seat you? I’m not sure if it’s OK for you to sit here!” As I glanced around the half-empty restaurant, she asked me to return to the front and check in with the host, which I did.I was then ushered to the exact same table I had originally chosen.

On the same business trip, I waited outside the airport with others in a heavy rainstorm for arental car company bus to transport me to the rental car parking lot. When the bus pulled up,it was so completely full of people that the door could hardly open. The driver jumped out andsaid to the discouraged masses who were waiting, “You can try to squeeze on here, which Idon’t recommend, or you could wait for the next bus, which is coming in five minutes. Or, youcan take a taxi to the car lot, tell them I authorized it, and they will reimburse you.” I happilywaited for the next bus, as I admired a company that would allow frontline employees todisburse company funds to keep a customer satisfied.

PUZZLES VS. PARADOXESWhether you are shopping, renting a car, or checking into a hotel, you interact continually withfrontline employees who are faced every day with a set of complicated and opposing choicesthat are built into their jobs. As customers show up with more unique preferences, specialrequirements, and informed opinions, it is increasingly difficult to standardize and, moreimportant, to rely on the judgment of those in customer-facing roles to customize responses.

On the most basic level, all leaders—from frontline supervisors to C-level executives—arefaced with two kinds of challenges: puzzles and paradoxes. Puzzles are problems with clear anddefined answers, such as “How can I rebook this passenger on the next flight to hisdestination?” Or, “Should we buy this new computer equipment?”

Paradoxes, on the other hand, are defined by two or more competing alternatives that mightnever be reconciled. They cannot be neatly solved, only managed with judgment andintelligence. These perplexing issues can be found everywhere: in the conflicting needs forpurpose and profit, short-term and long-term goals, standardization versus customization,local versus global demands, and—as in the previous examples—following the rules orbreaking them to make a customer happy.


In large organizations, most frontline employees are still trained to solve puzzles but to try tomove paradoxes upward. For example, if there isn’t a straightforward answer to a customersituation, an employee usually brings in a manager or someone higher up in the chain ofcommand to make the decision. If that manager isn’t able to solve the paradox, then the issueis pushed up to the next level—all while the customer waits for a resolution. In the days whencustomers knew little, asked for less, and were unaware of their rights, this process workedpretty well. Today, learning organizations push paradoxes to the front line and train people todeal with them effectively.

Most customer issues are paradoxes, and customer service people need to be empowered tomake decisions in real time to both protect the company’s interests and serve customers’individual needs. It’s a balancing act that requires judgment, intuition, and skill. In today’sworld, an angry customer can tell a million of his or her best friends about a negativeexperience in the time it takes to type 140 characters or post a video to YouTube. Thiscapability can do serious damage to a company’s reputation. Or, think about the employee onthe manufacturing line who doesn’t balance the need to achieve production quotas withappropriate concern about quality. In a globally connected supply chain, massive recalls oreven illness and death can be the result.

Encouraging frontline employees to understand and manage paradox sounds easier than it is.In fact, it’s one of the fundamental reasons why companies fail to innovate, remain agile, andthrive. In short, it can be the primary reason why an organization or a leader fails. Period.

Leaders at learning organizations need to take five steps to realize their highest potential—interms of both individual career growth and company performance in the market.

ACKNOWLEDGE THE PARADOXWe live in an increasingly complex, interconnected world, yet most organizations conspire todeny paradox. But paradox is all around us, regardless of the geography, level, or size of abusiness. Our natural tendency is to treat all paradoxes as if they are puzzles: “I’m on top of it.I can solve it.” This makes us feel in control. In addition, we know that managers are promotedfor the problems they solve, not the paradoxes they manage. Therefore, we need to consistentlyresolve issues and bring them to closure.


Paradoxes just don’t work that way. They are inherently messy and repel clear definitions.There are probably many right answers and several wrong ones, and each one is right or wrongbased on one lens, or perspective. The first thing leaders need to do is to acknowledge that theyare faced with a paradox so that it can be debated and managed in an open, collaborative way.

GET CLEAR ON THE PURPOSE OF YOUR ORGANIZATIONOne of the most effective ways to manage through a paradox is to frame it by getting crystalclear on your organization’s purpose. By purpose, I mean the following: Why does yourorganization exist? Who does it serve and why? What does your organization contribute to theworld? What does it stand for? What is the “North Star” for the business that can serve as abright light to navigate through murky decision making?

Once these questions are answered, purpose can frame, or put boundaries around, the paradoxthat will designate some aspects of the problem to take center stage and move others to thebackground. Purpose makes it easier to see the way forward.

For example, Larry Merlo, CEO of CVS Caremark, recently announced that his company is nolonger going to sell tobacco-based products—and will take a $2 billion hit to the bottom line—because doing so is starkly at odds with CVS’s core purpose of becoming a healthcareorganization. The decision about this paradox was hotly debated internally, promptingdiscussions about whether CVS was a retailer or a healthcare company. Ultimately, CVS’spurpose of promoting health helped the executives come to a new way of managing theirparadox, despite being in direct conflict with the short-term interests of company shareholders.Interestingly, CVS’s stock price went up after the announcement, and the sheer amount ofpositive press resulted in a significant uptick in brand perception.

ENCOURAGE A DIALOGUE TO FIND ALIGNMENTOnce paradox is recognized for what it is and a purpose is clearly defined, then leaders have anobligation to create space for an open discussion in which all points of view are valued andthoughtfully considered. Solicit ideas, challenge assumptions, develop empathy for people withalternative points of view, and remind everyone of what your common higher purpose is. As aleader, do these things yourself and encourage them in others around you.

Alex Gorsky, CEO of Johnson & Johnson, understands how to do this. He encourages adialogue around paradox and uses the company’s special statement, the J&J Credo, as thevehicle to foster debate and engagement. The J&J Credo begins with, “We believe our firstresponsibility is to the doctors, nurses, and patients, to mothers and fathers and all others whouse our products and services…” It goes on to state that the company will serve not onlycustomers but also employees, communities, and shareholders. As you may have noticed, theCredo itself is an inherent paradox. Are all these stakeholders equal, and in which situationsshould the interests of some trump those of others?

Gorsky encourages debate around complicated issues such as access to medicine in developingcountries and sponsors senior-executive learning programs designed around Credo issues tospark debate. He and his team give everyone in the company permission and space to discusshow their responsibility to meet the paradox inherent in the Credo evolves and changes, andthey ask teams to examine how they are fulfilling the Credo and how they might be fallingshort. The ongoing debate can sometimes be contentious, but ultimately it leads to alignmentbetween the J&J Credo and decision making at every level of the company.


EVALUATE PERFORMANCE OVER TIMEMost organizations today reward results that canbe quantitatively measured on a quarterlyor yearly basis. It’s easy to say,“This person increasedrevenue by 8% or successfullyfinished a project thatyielded positive businessresults and deserves a promotionor raise.” As you might guess, this approachis a puzzle-based reward system. It’s a snapshot in time.

Unfortunately, human performance usually is not that cut-and-dried.How do you recognize more subtle but potentially more importantcontributions, such as “This person catalyzed a critical conversation that helpedthe team get clearer on our purpose or went out of her way to make sure that a customer issuewas resolved?” It’s important to acknowledge the entire context of an employee’s performance.Smart leaders take the initiative to evaluate performance over time and to understandmotivations and abilities that are not easily quantified. By acknowledging context, it’s easier tosee how someone has managed through paradox and built the company’s overall capability.

GIVE TRUST TO OTHERS WHILE EARNING IT FOR YOURSELFLearning to fully trust others who may directly impact your own fate and performance is by farthe hardest thing for a leader to do. And as you go higher up in a company, another paradoxyou encounter is that while you must extend trust, you also have to continually earn it.

I recently attended a customer service training session at a Fortune 500 company that celebratedits customers, who were described as “the heart of the business.” Every company and executivethat I work with will say much the same thing, and they’re right. However, when the training gotunder way, it was clear that customer service agents had a very narrow window in which to makedecisions. Why? Because the company didn’t trust them to make the right calls for the business.

Leaders at learning organizations encourage the front line to internalize the company’spurpose and use it as a way to manage trade-offs. Executives and managers give them greaterfreedom to do what’s good for the company and right for the customer and then stand behindthem when they demonstrate good judgment over a longer period of time. This process willnot only increase customer satisfaction, create positive buzz, and engender brand loyalty, butalso pay off in a way you may not expect. It will allow you to be more in tune with subtlechanges in the market, because those shifts are only felt on the front line, not at the top.

It takes courage for leaders to let everyone in the organization manage paradox. It’s a leap offaith. But, ultimately, leaders who respect, trust, and honor their teams, customers, andcommunities are the ones who will win. MW

David Dotlich, PhD, is chairman and CEO of Pivot Leadership (www.pivotleadership.com and @pivotleadership),

a strategic leadership boutique that develops corporate strategy and executive development programs for Fortune

500 companies such as Walmart, Johnson & Johnson, GSK, Nike, Microsoft, KKR, Aetna, Best Buy, Deutsche Post

DHL, AbbVie, Ericsson, and many others. A successful entrepreneur who has founded and run two large inde-

pendent companies, Dotlich advises CEOs and boards on issues of talent, leadership, and strategy.


BY STEPHEN W. SHIPPEE

The pace of acquisitions is accelerating.

After a relatively tepid year for mergers and acquisitions in 2013,market analysts have predicted an upswing in merger activity for2014. An increasing number of companies see new opportunitiesto once again grow—particularly in industries such as technology,media, and healthcare. In many cases, a merger’s purpose is to helptransform a business by adding products, services, or hard-to-findtalent. In others, it’s to expand operations in faster-growinggeographies that might take years to develop from scratch orto gain an infusion of new customers and revenues.

Regardless of why your company pursues M&A, what industryyou are in, or whether you are the acquirer or the acquired, beforewarned: Compendiums of research studies over the years haveconfirmed that as many as two out of three mergers fail.

Based on my own experience with M&A and the observation oftroubled mergers such as Daimler-Chrysler, AOL-Time Warner,and Sprint-Nextel, the reason why most mergers fail is that ahighly important component of M&A activity has beenoverlooked: the “human element.” I define the human element asthe X factor in successful mergers. It involves both a philosophyand a structured approach to looking at an acquisition opportunity. Itincludes, but does not solely focus on, financial numbers. It goes beyondfinance to foster an understanding of the acquired company’s business culture from theemployee and overall brand perspective. Viewing an acquisition opportunity through this lensallows for a company to succeed beyond the purchase.

Using my organization as an example, over the past decade we have made eight strategicacquisitions that have added to our services portfolio and global capabilities. The reasons forthese acquisitions have included additions to or enhancements of our services, new products,platform innovations, business-process outsourcing capabilities, and global customer reach.Each of these acquisitions continues to contribute to the company’s success, and the history ofeach acquisition began with the building of a smart partnership.

The X FactorIn Successful Acquisitions:Getting the Human Side Right


CREATING A STRONG M&A PARTNERSHIPWhat does a smart partnership mean in M&A? Most M&A activity in the marketplace today isfacilitated under the cloak of secrecy by investment bankers who find a company, crunchnumbers, and find synergies based on the “quant” perspective. This means looking at howmuch a company can reduce costs while laying out cookie-cutter mathematical-based theoriesand business propositions. This is the reason why most M&As fail.

Make no mistake: The economics of a deal need to make sense, but financial theories alone arenot enough. It’s important to employ a structured process that starts with a look at theprospective merger candidate’s financials. At our firm, that means homing in on a well-runcompany—rather than one that is broken and in need of major fixing—with a managementteam that is looking not only to put coin in its own pocket but to reinvest in the company and make it better.

Our process seeks answers to questions such as the following:

� Is the acquisition prospect growing?� Is the business profitable?� Does it have high customer- and employee-retention rates?� Is employee morale strong?� Does the management team share the same vision, values, anddedication to corporate culture that we do?

If your answer to all the above questions isn’t yes, considerwalking away from the transaction. You increase your chancesof success if your M&A prospect is financially sound as wellas operationally and culturally compatible.

As a former boss of mine used to say to me, “It’s all aboutdinners. Make sure you like going to dinner with the CEO ofthe company you want to acquire and his executive team. There

are going to be a lot of dinners and a lot of time spent with thesefolks, and if you don’t enjoy their company, you likely won’t enjoy working

with their company.” I’ve taken this advice with me through my career andhave found it to be a very significant indicator for successful businesspartnerships.

Another important piece of advice to take into all business decisions is the fact thatyou—and the customers you serve—should be acquiring access to good people who

have a passion for their jobs and are dedicated to superior customer service andsatisfaction. Technology can be fixed with money, but strong customer contacts and dedicatedemployee relations are organic. They need to be solid to make a unified partnership work.

BEST PRACTICES FOR EXECUTING AN ACQUISITIONThe process of mastering the human element begins well before any negotiations start.Following are some best practices to ensure that your organization is targeting and partneringwith like-minded companies that will provide exceptional services to customers.


� Connecting. Every one of our eight acquisitions started with a private inquiry made by ourCEO or myself, where we got to know the company personally. This process can takemonths (in one case, even years), and the company may not necessarily have been lookingto be acquired. Our recent acquisition of Titan Technology Partners is a perfect example.What started over a two-hour-plus lunch turned into a tremendous business opportunitynine months later to expand our solutions and global capabilities in the managedenterprise software services market.

� Courtship.Walk into the negotiation not as a conquering hero but with a common vision.A courtship allows the development of trust between the respective executive teams,encourages exclusivity in negotiation rather than a bidding war, and leads to a fair price.

� Culture. In the case of our company, we have a strong customer intimacy mentality, and wecontinue moving more toward innovation. Customer intimacy never changes; therefore,it’s important to find like-minded companies that have the same values and ethics in theway they manage their business and maintain their customer and employee relations andsatisfaction.

� Communication. It’s our practice to be transparent and communicate with all employeesabout the partnership and meet with the new team in person the minute a transaction iscompleted. This communication helps keep concerns and uncertainty at bay. Make sureyou have a plan in place for communicating with the management, employees, andcustomers of both companies about the merger and what it means for them.

� Integration. Embrace the acquired company’s employees and reassure them. We tell them,“Your job is the same. Your salary is the same. Your boss is the same.” We then form theminto small collaborative teams to evaluate systems and work streams so that we canconverge on one single instance for each system. We leverage the employees’ talents tostrengthen each individual’s role and performance, and the resulting new corporateorganization chart emerges.

� Respect. Honor each individual’s tenure at the acquired company, even when it has alonger lifespan than your own company, as was the case with our most recent acquisition.Ensure that their respective benefits and perks will be equal to or better than what they hadpreviously. These actions lock in the reality of the partnership and show employees you’retrue to your word that this is a unified partnership, one that will create a better collectivecompany of skilled professionals.

In summary, companies that look beyond the dollar and get the X factor right by humanizingtheir acquisition strategy will be most successful in M&A. These companies will ensure thatthey build a stable and solid internal team and that customers (and investors) will benefit fromthe business decision to make smarter acquisitions. MW

Stephen W. Shippee is executive vice president and chief strategy officer at Velocity Technology Solutions, which

specializes in cloud applications hosting for enterprise and business software. In his role as chief strategy officer,

Shippee orchestrates Velocity’s strategic growth initiatives with a focus on mergers and acquisitions. He has presided

over eight acquisitions since the company was founded a decade ago.

Avoid the most common pitfalls in acquisitions—take AMA’s Course on Mergers and Acquisitions

(www.amanet.org/1521).


BY DON MROZ, PhD

Thanks to today’s rapidly

changing marketplace, business

leaders can no longer afford to rest

on previous successes. Gone are the days of 10-year plans

and strategies, finishing one product before starting

another one, and guesswork.

Today, strategies need to be evaluated yearly, and sometimes even quarterly. Organizationsneed to be working on multiple products or services at one time, even as they focus theirmarketing efforts on just one product or service to build and promote the overall brand. Andwhen it comes to growing the business, innovation is absolutely essential.

We all hear about the need for innovation. But for innovation to become a functional approachto company growth, it must be more than just a buzzword. It needs to be fostered and nurturedfrom the top of the organization down. To truly support a culture of innovation, leadersshould focus on eight critical skills:

1. Listening. When it comes to innovation, it’s your job as the leader to face resistance head-on.If you’re making changes to your organizational culture and are seeing resistance from one ormore members of your team, there is a good chance that there’s more where that came from. Itis far too easy to discount this resistance simply because it takes time and energy to deal with it.

It’s important to listen to what these people are saying and take their feedback into carefulconsideration. Really listen and comprehend, so that you can work with them on addressingwhat generally are some very legitimate concerns. By bringing their concerns to the forefront,you not only develop a stronger support network but also find better solutions.

The Innovator’s Manual:Eight Tools For FosteringInnovation


2. Risk taking. Everyone knows that trying new things and innovation go hand in hand.However, a fear of failure still holds some organizations back from making positive change. Tothem I say, “Innovation cannot happen without trying different approaches to the same problemand, at times, failing and learning from those failures.”

Innovation is certainly not only about solving problems. It’s also about developing newconcepts, products, processes, and so forth. But with any of these results, risk-taking is thename of the game. My advice is to use your judgment, and have faith that when given thepermission to do so, your employees will bring back new and successful solutions to oldproblems. Just be certain to set the risk parameters in a timely fashion.

3. Teaching and learning. One of the first things to understand about creating a culture ofinnovation is that to keep it alive, you must always promote a culture of unconditional, lifelonglearning for your employees and yourself. The “unconditional” part of this principle pertains tolearning from every interaction, even the difficult ones.

When an entire organization is learning together, innovation and creation are inevitable.At Post University, where I head up the Online MBA Program, we truly believe that theteachers and students must be learners, not just knowers. One good tip is to hold weeklybrainstorming sessions, where anything can be brought to the table for discussion and anyquestion can be asked. In large settings, employees may sometimes be afraid of asking a“stupid question.” But as the old cliché tells us, there is no such thing. One person’s “stupidquestion” might just spark the next person’s great idea.

4. Collaboration.At this point in my career, I’ve had a lot of experience working withinand leading large organizations. One characteristic of a larger organization is thatseveral different departments work, for the most part, independently from one another.When this happens, you run the risk of creating isolation, in which individuals begin todevelop a feeling of ownership over one project or account with little or no concernabout what’s happening elsewhere in the organization. Collaborating and sharing ideasare absolutely necessary for innovation to take hold.

To address this issue, make an effort to identify the people who see the advantage ofcollaborating and bring those champions together to build cross-functional teams.When people share techniques, business principles, and ideas, everyone’s skill set andthe organization overall are strengthened.

5. Sense of humor. We all know that every successful organization needs to be driven bypassion. But workplaces that are driven by passion often are hotbeds of intensity and pressure.During high-stress times, it is the challenge of a leader to bring some humor into the mix. Ifyou do this, you will be showing your employees that it’s OK for them to laugh.

Nothing bridges the gap between two people better or faster than laughter. Not only doeshumor build a positive, encouraging atmosphere that people will look forward to working in,but it also brings out valuable traits, such as warmth and compassion, in yourself and youremployees. These characteristics go a long way toward building an innovative culture. In fact,they’re so important that I suggest bringing a bit of humor into the interviewing process toidentify those candidates who will bring some humor to the mix.

6. Reflection.You cannot continue to make progress with innovation if you don’t take the timeto evaluate what has worked and what hasn’t. Often, successful organizations work in fast-pacedenvironments where carving out the time it takes to seriously reflect can be difficult. But once it’s

done, it provides the space to think through the project being worked on or the innovation beingcreated. Reflection allows “think time,” and creativity and innovation can’t happen without it.

I recommend penciling in reflection time while you’re mapping out the time commitment for eachproject. The benefits of this are twofold: You’ll ensure that reflection actually takes place, and you’llalso make sure it doesn’t take away from any future projects because the time has been planned andaccounted for up-front. Finally, it’s never a bad idea to bring the colleagues that you worked with oneach project into the reflection process. That way, the project is truly examined from all angles.

7. Trustworthiness. Many of the tips discussed above are reliant on employees’ willingness to beopen and share new ideas and honest feedback. This is not likely to happen unless yourorganizational culture is a safe one. By “safe,” I mean that all employees feel they can participatein meetings and collaborate on projects without being denied or shot down.

For managers, it’s important to realize that trust starts with you. If you find yourself in asituation in which an employee says something off topic, the way you respond is key.Remember, as the leader—all eyes are on you. You want to gently guide him back to theright path, while at the same time making sure you or no one else criticizes him so thathe won’t be afraid to join the conversation in the future. One of my mantras is, “It’salways in the how.” Often, you can be critical of someone with your voice or your bodylanguage. Keep these elements in mind to be sure you’re remaining positive.

8. Flexibility. There is no wrong way to innovate, so it’s important to keep a flexibleand open mind when trying to incorporate innovation into your organization. I’vefound that this concept is best captured in the term “equifinality,” which I learnedwhen I was teaching systems thinking. Equifinality has two meanings: to follow avariety of paths but end up reaching the same result, and to start in the same place andend up in a different place.

This way of thinking can be difficult for some employees to follow because people tendto think that their way is the “right” way. In fact, there are probably some instances inwhich, despite how much you value innovation, you have a hard time parting withyour old way of doing things. But just remember that when you are able to let go ofthat stagnant mindset, you will become open to the ideas that will lead to greaterinnovation and, therefore, success.

You may be considering marketing a specific product or service that is in demand as away to promote your overall brand. This method may be innovative for your organization, andas such you may encounter some resistance. No leader can do it alone. Surrounding yourselfwith creative people who aren’t afraid to change creates an environment in which innovationwill thrive. One of my most tried-and-true tools is what I call a leader’s “sixth sense”—theability to feel and anticipate when the time is right for change. Leaders should have an innatesense of when their product or service is becoming outdated, so that they are able to quicklychange direction. The strategies you structure must remain flexible, and using these eight toolscan ensure that you are constantly evolving and keeping that pace. MW

Don Mroz, PhD, runs Post University’s Online MBA Program and works as a partner in Waves of Change

Consulting. He has extensive experience helping businesses large and small manage change and find new ways to

grow and prosper. Mroz has worked with organizations from mom-and-pop shops to Fortune 100 companies across

many sectors, including the nonprofit arena. Mroz can be reached at [email protected]

Solve problems efficiently and creatively with AMA’s seminar Critical Thinking (www.amanet.org/2533).


American Management Association MWORLD FALL 201420

FromEffectiveAction toStrategicVision:Transitioning To the C-SuiteBY GAIL ANGELO

The requirements for getting to the C-suite have changed along

with the times.

The rate and complexity of change in today’s marketplace dictate a broader understanding ofbusiness issues and an ability to be nimble in a rapidly changing economic environment.Technical or functional expertise alone will not get you to the C-suite these days.

So what does it take? In my coaching experiences with executives, whether Fortune 100 orFortune 1000, I have seen the following trends evolve for success in the C-suite: clarity ofpurpose, an understanding of the broader business, inspirational leadership, and an ability toanticipate and adapt quickly to change.


CLARITY OF PURPOSEIn business today, there is an increasing emphasis on defining and communicating your personalbrand. When we think about brand, the process often starts with a question about what we wantto be known for. What do you want people saying about you when you are not in the room? Asuccessful personal brand communicates a clear, consistent message about who you are and whatyou have to offer. In working with hundreds of executives over many years, I have found thatbrand is an extension of purpose. Therefore, the ability to clarify our purpose and live into itcourageously influences our individual, team, and organizational effectiveness and impact.

Clarifying purpose begins with the fundamental question of “why.” Why do you do what you do?Those who are the most effective in getting to and experiencing success in the C-suite are clearabout their purpose. Most important, it is a purpose anchored in service beyond themselves.How do you want to be of service as a leader? What contributions do you want to make?

Individuals connected to purpose experience high levels of engagement, contribution, andfulfillment, yet questions about purpose are some of the most challenging for people to answer.The temptation is to answer such questions with a statement about what you do versus whyyou do it. Purpose emanates from your core and describes who you are versus the role youplay. It is your call to action. For example, my role is that of an executive coach and leadershipdevelopment strategist. I do what I do because supporting people in awakening to andachieving their greatest potential is the work that is most meaningful for me and that allowsme to make the greatest contribution.

Discover your purpose by reflecting on the following:

� The patterns in your life that provide insights about your passions, strengths, and values.Consider how these patterns and experiences have influenced and are demonstrated inyour leadership and life today, and which of your passions and values are dormant orunderutilized.

� How your passions and values align with the purpose of the organization you wish to lead� Feedback you have sought to determine how you are showing up to others

As a result of this reflection, it becomes increasingly clear how your participation at the C-suite levelcan best support the organization’s purpose as well as your purpose and significance as a leader.

FROM SILOED TO STRATEGIC THINKING: STRENGTHENING BUSINESS SAVVYStrategic thinking is defined as the capacity for thinking conceptually, imaginatively,systematically, and opportunistically about the attainment of success in the future. To makethe transition into the C-suite, leaders must have a broader, more holistic view of the business.

Leaders in the C-suite have developed an ability to understand the dynamics, challenges, andimplications of decisions across functions. They have developed a proficiency in businessfundamentals and strategy. They break down silos and seek opportunities to collaboratestrategically and creatively to address challenges that affect the organization as a whole. Inshort, they have moved from tactical execution to strategic thinking and decision making.

Because of the increasing complexity of business environments, the CEO of today must rely onhis or her C-suite team for thoughtful counsel. There is an expectation that those in the C-suite are capable of releasing narrow agendas in support of the broader good to achievemarket differentiation and competitive advantage.


To be a viable candidate for the C-suite, you must strengthen your understanding andapplication of expertise to the entire business. Begin now to:

� Step outside your comfort zone. Learn to be comfortable in your discomfort.� Seek experiences such as a task force or other initiative of strategic importance that provideyou with a broader understanding of the business and its challenges and opportunities

� Boldly identify ways to promote new growth, new markets, new go-to-market strategies,and new efficiencies

� Ask others, particularly people outside your function, how they think about thosechallenges and opportunities

� Notice how decisions get made� Better leverage the diverse talent across functions for a more holistic approach to the market� Pay attention to the questions you ask yourself and others. Do these questions promotemore innovative and strategic thinking? Do they promote deeper understanding?

� Ask yourself how you are defining success. What would cause success in a particularsituation?

� Think about other considerations that might be explored. Get in the habit of consideringwhat is possible versus why it can’t be done.

INSPIRATIONAL LEADERSHIP: LEADING OTHER LEADERSTo obtain a seat at the C-suite table, you must be able to lead other leaders. This ability isparamount. Leadership is a relationship business, and relationships are built on trust. Trust isbuilt on communication and action with integrity. Leaders of leaders inspire the bestperformance from individual people and teams as well as organizational outcomes. Being aleader of leaders requires flexibility, trust, influence, communication, and confidence.

Leading other leaders is as much an art as a skill. As individuals grow in an organization and inleadership ability, they often lead people as smart as or smarter than themselves. For theseleaders, keen observation and listening skills provide the perspective needed to learn how tobring out the best in co-leaders. They gain insight about the strengths of those they are leadingand influencing. They understand the approaches and environments that promote the highestlevels of engagement.

Leaders of leaders adapt their own styles accordingly. They have developed an exquisite abilityto put themselves in the other person’s shoes and meet others where they are. Theycommunicate in a way that allows others to receive the message best, thereby promotingunderstanding and connection to the broader vision. With confidence, they encourage theirco-leaders to take the reins, play big, talk straight, and act boldly. Leaders in the C-suite knowthat their success depends on the success of others and therefore are committed to their co-leaders’ success.

To lead other leaders, take these actions:� Provide vision and communicate their connection to the broader strategic context� Provide leaders with the opportunity to contribute to strategy� Ask questions and seek input and perspectives from other leaders within the team andacross broader groups

� Listen to understand versus waiting to respond


� Seek alternative points of view� Seek ways to remove silos and promote collaboration� Encourage change to emerge, and empower other leaders to make the change� Encourage a culture of constructive disagreement and the sharing of diverse points of view� Support the success of others, particularly at the peer level� Communicate, communicate, communicate in ways that others receive the message best

ANTICIPATING AND RESPONDING QUICKLY TO CHANGEEffective leaders in the C-suite demonstrate situational, mental, and emotional agility. Agility isrequired because change will continue to occur at lightning speed, with increasingly intricateconsiderations. Adapting to change often is a reactive experience. Agility is the willingness andability to anticipate and explore the best approach to growing changes in a variety ofenvironments. Agile leaders proactively reflect, take action to reduce risk, and make the most ofopportunities in what will inevitably become the new normal—for now.

Agile leaders are exceptional at adapting to new situations, new information, and differinginterpersonal styles. They are flexible in their thinking and in tapping diverse groups of talentfor more impactful results. They have learned to apply insights from past learnings to currentand future scenarios. Marshall Goldsmith, renowned leadership expert, has said, “One of themost important qualities for the leader of the future is agility. Given our rapidly changingeconomy and world, leaders have to be quick, agile learners. They need to learn from all oftheir key stakeholders and be able to change course based upon what they are learning. Inshort, how we lead yesterday may not be sufficient today.”

These steps will strengthen your agility:� Take risks in speaking up about changes you see on the horizon� Promote innovation and creativity in problem solving or opportunity generation� Influence a culture of broader exploration and risk, and empower others to dothe same

� Maintain an insatiable level of curiosity

In conclusion, different times call for different measures.Getting to the C-suite is a different path for today’sleaders. Expertise is not enough. Successful C-suite leaders arepurposeful, broad-based thinkers with clear points of view, yet theyare open to alternative ones. They are skillful in bringing the powerof the entire organization to challenges and opportunities. They arenimble and unafraid in their approach to change. Most important, thosein the C-suite inspire action and invite the best from their fellow leaders. MW

Gail Angelo is a leader of leaders. Using an intuitive yet practical approach that enables those

she works with to move from wishing and hoping to doing and attaining, Angelo empowers

her clients to act as the owners of their leadership goals. She helps executives identify their

true strengths, eliminate negativity, and create strategies with clear action steps that lead to

success and fulfillment for her clients. For more information or to contact Angelo, visit

www.gailangelo.com


To recognize that the potential for revolutionizingmanagement lies in data, look back to NapoleonBonaparte. Although the noted French general andemperor preceded the digital age by almost two cen-turies, he fundamentally knew that having the rightdata was key to success, having reportedly said, “Waris 90% information.”In today’s modern-

day business world,managers can leveragea vast amount of datato equip their organiza-tion and collect a con-stant stream of dataabout people, projects,work, and the businessenvironment. We callthis “decoding.”As a concept, decod-

ing employees is rela-tively new to manage-ment, although the ideahas deep roots in thecustomer-relationshipspace. Companies suchas Amazon and Netflix have been decoding their customers to personalize their user experience foryears. With employees, the benefits are equally advantageous: increased employee engagement andproductivity.Personalizing the employee experience is com-

pletely contrary to the one-size-fits-all managementpolicies and processes that have been used by mostcompanies since the dawn of the industrial revolu-tion, long before today’s sophisticated technologyplatforms were conceived.The benefits of decoding a company are substan-

tial, but they can only be realized when the leaderscommit to preserving the privacy of employeesthrough the use of ethical data practices. In research-ing The Decoded Company, we consistently foundthat decoded companies are open and clear about thedata they collect. They use data that is available inter-nally as part of the “corporate public record.”

Additionally, they require transparency: an explicitopt-in from their employees to use any data that isn’tpublic, such as health and medical data.What kind of data do decoded companies collect?

They gather as much data as possible from the cor-porate public record—supplies ordered, how much

coffee is being con-sumed in the officekitchens, etc. It’s oftensurprising to learnhow valuable seem-ingly disconnecteddata points canbecome. What’s more,these days data storageis cheap to the pointthat it’s almost free.Qualitative meas-

urements are useful tounderstand the “why”behind observationsbut suffer at scale.Quantitative measure-ments are much moreuseful for equipping

people with “data as a sixth sense” because they scaleeasily and can be efficiently analyzed in real time bysophisticated, predictive algorithms.We recommend the collection of self-reported

data, which includes expense reports and time sheets,and ambient data, which may include patterns ofcommunication between employees and customers,time spent in the office, the use of your intranet, and more. For example, our employees drank 61,392 cups of coffee in our company last year, as measured ambiently by our network of coffeemachines.The more that companies understand the dynam-

ics of the most granular data points in their enter-prises, the more reliably they can predict outcomesand reduce surprises. By tracking everything frombasic patterns of behavior to individual experience,companies are able to decode long-term patterns thatseparate signal from noise. This process allows them

Data Holds the Key to Successful ManagementBY LEEROM SEGAL, JAY GOLDMAN, AND RAHAF HARFOUSH

S O U N D I N G S


S O U N D I N G S

to create predictive models that automatically flagpotentially hazardous situations that will affect theircustomers and overall business.This data foundation helps companies empower

their people with superpowers that were unimagin-able a generation ago. We’ve distilled this foundationinto three key “Decoded Principles”:

� Technology as a coach and trainer. Enterprisetechnology traditionally is a referee, slavishly and impartially reinforcing business rules. Smarttechnology can be transformed into coaches that use data to personalize the experience for each mem-ber of a team and flag issues before they become problems.Technology also can be used to identify and

implement “teachable moments”—timely opportu-nities to coach and train people at the precisemoment the training is needed. This timelinessmakes the training more meaningful and memorableand leads to significantly higher performance.Using technology as a coach can take an employee

onboarding program to a higher, more effective level.Systems that can detect when a new hire starts canlink to training videos and modules at the mostappropriate times for each employee and allow forbetter communication with his or her manager.

� Data as a sixth sense. By pairing analytics withhuman instincts to gain a perspective that’s groundedin data but tempered by experience, companies cangive employees access to an unprecedented amountof information to use in assessing a situation andmaking better decisions faster.As a decision-making superpower, data as a sixth

sense leverages one’s existing experience to informcontext around a decision and eliminates personalbiases and emotions.It’s interesting to examine the dynamics involved

in the decision-making process. In the lead-up, thesixth sense functions like an organizational proprio-ceptor, providing people with an innate awareness ofeverything that’s happening within the company andeliminating blind spots without the need to explicitlyseek out information.At the actual decision-making point, informed

intuition kicks in. Data as a sixth sense helps employ-ees recognize when their gut instincts don’t agreewith the perceived facts. This principle provides themwith the knowledge of how to use the data at theirfingertips to make faster, smarter decisions.

� Engineered ecosystems. We have seen first-hand the advantages of intentionally engineeringwork environments that become centers of gravityfor the best talent, a people-first approach that putstalent above customers and customers above profits.Companies with engineered ecosystems are estab-

lishing a culture of experimentation that uses quanti-tative feedback to measure the behaviors, attitudes,and beliefs that exist inside the organization and thereal impact of changes made.The most successful companies of the future will

be those that can manage and mine these bits andbytes of data and use them internally to empowertheir talent. The reality is, data can no longer be regarded sim-

ply as a technological issue: It is a strategic advantage.Companies need to rethink the way they managetheir businesses by using data as cleverly internally asthey do externally. We believe we are at the cusp of anew frontier.Employees are swimming in an ocean of data. All

the data required to personalize their experiencealready exists within most organizations, as is thetechnology required to handle it.The ability to use data has become a management

issue that must be prioritized and studied at thehighest level of an organization. It’s already started to help a wide range of data-driven, people-centriccompanies to drive their corporate culture and performance.Companies that understand, and treat, their

employees as well as they do their customers won’tonly win the war on global talent. They’ll also enjoyhigher growth, customer satisfaction, and profitsthan their competitors. It’s a game changer, and itwill differentiate industry leaders from laggards overthe next century. MW

Leerom Segal is a co-founder and CEO of Klick Health, the

world’s largest independent digital health agency.

Jay Goldman is a managing director for Klick and has been

published in the Harvard Business Review. Rahaf Harfoush

is a technology author and lecturer. They are co-authors of

the New York Times bestseller The Decoded Company:

Know Your Talent Better Than You Know Your Customers

(Portfolio/Penguin, 2014).

Learn to make better decisions at the AMA seminar Tools and

Techniques for Mastering Data (www.amanet.org/1112).


BY MARK PASTIN

To succeed in any business, you have to influence others to

support your viewpoint and decisions. Top business

leaders are masters of influence.

Those who succeed in leading their organizations on a long-term basis infuse influence withethics. When influence is infused with ethics, the decisions made are respected and more easilyimplemented than they are when force or manipulation is used. And the person making thedecision avoids the rebound that occurs when others realize they have been manipulated.

Managers can use four tools of ethical influence. These tools will help you get others to agree withyou without assessing the penalties associated with less effective, more manipulative approaches.They will make you a source of influence not only in the short run but also over time.

DETERMINE THE GROUND RULESPeople love to talk about ethics without saying just what they are talking about. When I want toknow about someone’s ethics, I am far more interested in what he will do, especially underpressure, than in what he says. My shorthand for this is to say a person’s ethics consist of his orher ground rules. Ground rules are the basic principles on which each person will act.

To understand people’s ground rules, watch what they do, particularly in difficult situations.Do they still tell the truth when they are put under pressure to lie? Do they keep promises evenwhen it proves more difficult than expected? This concrete information abouttheir ethics is far more valuable than their abstract opinions.

When you disagree with someone on an issue, there is still a goodchance that you have ground rules in common. Move the discussion tothese shared ground rules to see if that brings about agreement. If this tacticdoesn’t work, make your point in terms of the other party’s ground rules. Whenyou do this, you show respect for him and move the discussion off the points ofcontention. When you know the ground rules—yours and those of others—you are ina much better position to exercise influence.

FIND HIDDEN INTERESTSWhen seeking to influence a decision about a situation, always ask what interests are atstake. Those you are trying to influence are more likely to be receptive if they see your

Four Tools of Ethical Influence


position as being in their interests. Many interests are hidden because people learn that declaringtheir interests often results in them being thwarted. You can find hidden interests by reasoningbackward, from outcomes to interests. Determine what outcomes the other side wants, and askwhat interests each outcome serves. Once you find the hidden interests, you are in a betterposition to influence with ethics because you know what others want.

GET UP CLOSE AND PERSONALEthical influence works best up close and personal. Our ethical instincts were honed when weneeded trust and cooperation to survive in small hunter-gatherer groups. Emotions ofsympathy and empathy helped these groups stick together. Although our world has changeddramatically, our wiring is still the same. The modern evidence of this is that it is far easier tohurt someone who’s far away from us than someone in the same room. Many who could dropa bomb on an entire city could not kill a civilian face to face. By the same token, it is harder toignore the needs of someone close to you than those of someone who lives thousands of milesaway. This is because the core of our ethical sense—our abilities to feel sympathy andempathy—relies on cues in our immediate environment.

This principle means that if you are trying to influence with ethics, it helps to do so personally.The other party will be more attuned to your needs and you will be more attuned to his orhers. Many situations that seem hopeless when handled remotely can be resolved up close andpersonal. When you can’t influence someone through the printed word and email, rely on theemotional wiring that encourages us to agree with those in our immediate environment.

GET SPECIFICWhen we are trying to influence with ethics, we often start by trying to get others to acceptour general viewpoint. This attempt often fails, since you may be asking someone to give upbeliefs to which he or she has clung for years. But it’s often possible to achieve agreement withsomeone in a specific case even if you would never agree at the level of basic principles. InWashington, we often see politicians acting contrary to their stated principles when it comes totheir own families. A politician who would never support gay rights tends to act differentlywhen one of his or her children is gay. An advocate of public education may send his ownchildren to private schools.

When you seek to influence with ethics, find the level of agreement you need to moveforward. Start with the specific and only move to a more general level if you can’t reachagreement at the level of specifics. If you don’t need to change someone’s principlesto move ahead, stick to the specifics.

When you influence with ethics, you decrease the distance between yourselfand those you seek to influence. This progress gives you a basis

for continued influence, with no price to pay for being manipulative.Influencing with ethics lays the foundation for continued success as a source of

influence. MW

Mark Pastin (www.markpastin.com) is an award-winning ethics thought leader, ethics consultant, and

keynote speaker. He is CEO of the Council of Ethical Organizations, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting ethics

in business and government. A Harvard-educated ethicist, Pastin has published more than 100 articles

and written a new book, Make an Ethical Difference: Tools for Better Action (Berrett-Koehler, 2013).


BY DANIEL JENSEN, PhD

Strategic planning is a disciplined effort to

produce fundamental decisions and actions

that shape and guide what an organization

is, what it does, and why it does it, as

defined by John M. Bryson in Strategic

Planning for Public and Nonprofit

Organizations (John Wiley & Sons, 2011).

In short, a strategic plan should be the driving force for actions at all levels of an organization.

The strategic-planning effort consists of much more than conducting an annual offsite meetingto determine an organizational philosophy (such as vision, mission, values, core competencies,and priorities). If the strategic plan is properly executed, it will help create a way of thinking,acting, and learning that is necessary to achieve organizational success. Without strategicplanning, an organization may continuously react to near-term issues, but employees will notunderstand why their work is important. Strategic planning links and synchronizes actions at alllevels of the organization, resulting in leaders and followers who understand where they areheading and why their day-to-day actions matter. Because resources usually are limited, strategicplanning must occur to ensure that resources are not expended unnecessarily due to a lack ofstrategic and operational focus.

Sometimes, however, even if a strategic plan exists, the actions and organizational focus at alllevels are never synchronized. Unfortunately, in some organizations, an offsite strategic planningmeeting is viewed as an intrusion on day-to-day priorities and tasks—a “check the box” activitythat does not translate into actionable objectives and tasks. The strategic plan is often dismissedas esoteric and the responsibility only of senior leaders, not of people in mid- and lower-levelleadership positions. Consequently, the strategic plan is never put into action.

Executing the Strategic Plan:Five Actions MidlevelLeaders Can Take


Although senior leaders may be responsible for developing the strategic plan, it is theresponsibility of midlevel leaders to translate this strategy into operational-level plans andactions that will result in execution throughout the organization. Without midlevel leadershipbuy-in and emphasis, the strategic plan cannot be put into action throughout the organization.

Following are five fundamental actions that midlevel leaders can take to execute the strategic plan:

SUPPORTING GOALS AND OBJECTIVES: FIXING RESPONSIBILITYThe organizational philosophy is the foundation of the strategic plan, but strategic goals withsupporting objectives must be developed. Goals describe a future condition that theorganization needs to attain to achieve its vision. Objectives are statements of what must bedone to achieve a goal. Effective objectives are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, andtimely (SMART).

As goals and supporting objectives are developed, identifying which individual or organizationis primarily responsible for their achievement is important, as is identifying the otherindividuals or organizations needed to help accomplish the objectives. To develop action plans,determine who has the primary responsibility and who has the secondary responsibility inachieving the goals and objectives.

DETAILED ACTION PLANNING: WHERE THE RUBBER MEETS THE ROADEach objective should have an action plan. An action plan describes the specific tasks that arenecessary to achieve the supported objective. This level of planning is where the rubber meetsthe road. Ultimately, it determines whether the objectives, goals, and organizational vision areachieved. Actions plans detail the milestones, activities, time frames, resources, and teammembers required to achieve an objective.

Leaders should develop action plans in a manner that best meets the needs of those involved inexecuting the plans. Anything from butcher paper and markers to software programs can beused in the development process.

MEASUREMENTS: UNDERSTANDING PROGRESSMeasuring specific tasks is necessary to understand progress against expected results. Measuresare a standard used to evaluate and communicate performance. They should be developed togive leaders a current view of the progress made in achieving the organization’s goals, objectives,and action plans. Mark Graham Brown, in Keeping Score: Using the Right Metrics to Drive World-Class Performance (Productivity Press, 2006), offers the following suggestions on how toapproach organizational measurement:

� Measurement should focus on the vital few key variables rather than the trivial many� Measures should be linked to the factors needed for success—the key business drivers� Measures should be a mix of past, present, and future to ensure that the organization isconcerned with all three perspectives

� Measures should be based around the needs of customers, shareholders, and other keystakeholders

� Measures should start at the top and flow down to all levels of employees in the organization� Multiple indices can be combined into a single index to give a better overall assessment ofperformance


� Measures need to have targets or goals established that are based on research rather thanarbitrary numbers

� Measures should be changed or at least adjusted as the environment and your strategy changes

ENVIRONMENTAL SCANNING: ASSESSING OPPORTUNITIES AND THREATSA strategic plan is a living document. Changes and updates to the plan are driven by the strategicenvironment, those factors outside the organization that are potential opportunities or threats.The strategic environment must be scanned and assessed to make appropriate adjustments tothe strategic plan.

One way to undertake this scan is with a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats(SWOT) analysis. The SWOT analysis is a methodology used by many organizations todetermine the strengths and weaknesses that are inherent to the organization (internal focus)and the opportunities and threats that are outside the organization (external focus). Strengthsand weaknesses are normally focused on the present state of the organization, whileopportunities and threats are future-oriented. To identify internal strengths and weaknesses,the organization must monitor resources, strategies, and performance. Monitoring externalforces—the political, economic, social, educational, technological, informational, andenvironmental trends—can help identify opportunities and threats. The leaders of anorganization must dedicate the appropriate resources to properly scanning and assessing thestrategic environment.

LEADERSHIP EMPHASIS: A STRATEGIC-PLANNING IMPERATIVEEmployees pay attention to what is important to the boss. For the strategic plan to be effectivelyexecuted, it must be a top priority of leadership at all levels. Leaders can emphasize theimportance of the strategic plan’s execution in a number of ways:

� Meet with subordinate leadership to explain your intent and expectations� Display posters in work areas showing the organizational philosophy� Post the strategic plan on the organization’s home page� Promote the strategic plan on social media� Address the strategic plan during media events and visits to subordinate organizations� Develop and present supporting plans� Host “town-hall meetings” to express the significance of the strategic plan� Evaluate employees based on the accomplishment of strategic-planning products (goals,objectives, action plans, and metrics)

A strategic plan provides the framework for an organization to prioritize and synchronizeorganizational and individual actions in order to achieve the goals and vision. However, having aplan is not enough. Midlevel leaders, supported by senior leadership, must accept executionresponsibilities for the strategic plan by developing goals and objectives, creating andimplementing actions plans, measuring progress, scanning the environment, and providingleadership emphasis. Leadership, particularly midlevel leadership, is the foundation of success. MW

Dan Jensen, PhD, is a consultant, educator, and retired military officer specializing in strategic planning, leader-

ship, and organizational development. He teaches organizational leadership at Harrisburg University of Science

and Technology. For more information, contact him at [email protected]

Accomplish your strategic goals this year by attending the AMA course Strategy Execution: Getting It Done



In the past 10 years, researchers using MRI brainscans have learned more about the science of per-suasion than we’ve learned in all of civilization todate. This research means we now know what movespeople, and we can prove it scientifically.There’s nothing more inspiring than a bold idea

delivered by a great speaker. Ideas, effectively pack-aged and delivered, can change the world. And fewplatforms are more influential in the spread of ideasthan TED, the famous conference celebrating its30th anniversary in 2014. TED presentations havebeen viewed more than a billion times online.Speakers who have taken the stage include some ofthe most influential men and women in theirrespective fields: Bill Gates, Sheryl Sandberg, Al Gore, and many others.After analyzing more than 500 of these presenta-

tions and talking directly to successful speakers, I’vediscovered that the most popular TED talks shareseveral common elements that are based on the sci-ence of persuasion. Once you’ve learned the secretsthat these communicators share, you can adoptthem in your own presentations. Here are the sevenprinciples:

According to Larry Smith, eco-nomics professor at the Universityof Waterloo, “Passion is the thing

that will help you create the highest expression ofyour talent.” Smith’s TED talk, “Why You Will Fail to Have a Great Career,” has been viewed more than2 million times. Smith’s message is simple: Followyour passion and you will have a great career. Don’tfollow it and you won’t. Although Smith’s advice isbased on his 30 years of experience as an educator,neuroscience backs up his claim.Professors Joyce Bono at the University of

Minnesota and Remus Ilies, now at the NationalUniversity of Singapore, conducted four separate stud-ies with hundreds of participants to measurecharisma, positive emotions, and “mood contagion.”The researchers found that “individuals who are ratedhigh on charisma tend to express more positive emo-tions in their written and spoken communications.”Bono and Ilies also discovered that positive emotions

1. PASSION ISCONTAGIOUS

are contagious, lifting themoods of participants in theaudience. When you’re pas-sionate about your topic,your energy and enthusiasmwill rub off on your audience.

Nearly every popular TED pres-entation begins with a story, andyet, most speakers in business

today tell stories infrequently. Instead they stick todata, stats, and generic marketing messages. I’velearned a lot about storytelling from the presentationof Bryan Stevenson, a civil rights attorney whose talkreceived the longest standing ovation ever at TED. It was so persuasive that the audience membersdonated $1 million to his nonprofit organization.Stevenson told three stories which reinforced his

theme that in underserved and underprivileged com-munities, many young people grow up without a senseof identity, which leads to profoundly harmful deci-sions. Stories made up 65% of his presentation. Thedata Stevenson used to back his arguments comprisedonly 10% of the presentation. Statistics support yourargument; stories connect you with your audience.Uri Hasson, assistant professor of psychology at

Princeton University, and his colleagues have discov-ered that personal stories actually cause the brains ofboth the storyteller and the listener to sync up.Hasson and his colleagues recorded the brain activ-ity of a speaker telling unrehearsed stories. Next,they measured the brain activity of the person listen-ing to the story and asked the listener to fill out adetailed questionnaire to measure comprehension.The researchers found that “the listener’s brainresponses mirrored the speaker’s brain responses.” Meld your mind to that of your listener. Stories

inform, illuminate, and inspire.

I spoke to Robert Ballard, theexplorer who discovered theTitanic. His TED presentation

contained 57 slides. Interestingly, the slides had nowords on them, containing mostly pictures, images,and animations. “I’m not lecturing. I’m storytelling,”

2. STORIES SYNCOUR MINDS

3. PICTURES ARESUPERIOR TOTEXT

C R E A T I V E I N S I G H T S

Seven Scientific Principles ThatTurbocharge Presentations BY CARMINE GALLO

Carmine Gallo


Ballard explained to me.Scientists call this principle “picture

superiority.” If you hear information,you are likely to remember about 10%of it three days later. Add a picture,and your recall rate will soar to 65%.Our brains are wired to process

visual information differently fromtext and sound. In multimodal learn-ing, pictures are processed in several

channels, giving the brain a deeper, more meaningfulencoding experience. Allan Paivio, a psychology profes-sor at the University of Western Ontario, calls this the“dual-coding” theory. According to his theory, visualand verbal forms of information are stored separatelyin our memory as images, words, or both. Concepts inpicture form are encoded visually and verbally. Wordsare encoded only verbally. In short, pictures are morerichly stamped in our brains and easier to recall.

No TED speaker is allowed tospeak for more than 18 minutes.TED curator Chris Anderson

has said that 18 minutes is long enough to be seriousand short enough to hold people’s attention. When yougive people too much information, a “cognitive back-log” occurs. The more information you ask someone toretain, the more likely he will be to forget everything.This does not mean you cannot speak for more than

18 minutes when you give a presentation. It does sug-gest that you should try to build in ways to reengageyour audience every 20 minutes or less. Reengagementtechniques might include using videos, stories, or com-pelling slide designs or simply taking a break from yourpresentation to let the audience ask questions.

In 2009, Bill Gates gave a TEDtalk on the topic of reducingchildhood deaths in Africa.

“Malaria is spread by mosquitoes,” Gates told the audi-ence as he picked up a glass jar sitting on a nearbytable. He opened the jar and said, “I brought somehere. I’ll let them roam around. There is no reasononly poor people should be infected.” The audience satin stunned silence for a moment, then laughed,applauded, and cheered. They weren’t happy about thetopic, of course, but they knew that Gates had giventhem a novel way to consider it.Gates created what neuroscientists call an “emotion-

4. THE 18-MINUTERULE PREVENTSOVERLOAD

5. EMOTIONALLYCHARGED EVENTSGRAB ATTENTION

ally charged event.” Such situations grab a listener’sattention and are remembered long after the presenta-tion is over. I’m not suggesting that you release mos-quitoes in your next presentation, but I am recom-mending that you tap into people’s emotions to elicitjoy, shock, fear, or surprise.

If you can’t explain your bigidea in 140 characters—aboutthe length of a Twitter post—

keep working on your message. This discipline willbring clarity to your presentation and help your audi-ence recall the one big idea you’re trying to teach them.Since the brain craves meaning before details, the firststep to giving a TED-worthy presentation is to ask,“What is the one thing I want my audience to know?”After reviewing the topics of every one of the more

than 1,500 publicly available presentations onTED.com, I couldn’t find one title that was more than140 characters. Here are some samples from the most-viewed presentations.

� “How Schools Kill Creativity” (Sir Ken Robinson)� “The Surprising Science of Happiness” (Dan

Gilbert)� “The Power of Introverts” (Susan Cain)� “How to Live Before You Die” (Steve Jobs)The Twitter headline works because it forces you to

identify and clarify the one key message you wantyour audience to remember.

Psychologist Rod A. Martin hassaid, “Over the past century asense of humor has become a

highly prized personality characteristic.” Don’t takeyourself (or your topic) too seriously. Humor lowerspeople’s defenses, making your audience more recep-tive to your message. It also makes you seem more lik-able, and people are more willing to do business withsomeone they like.While you may never speak at an actual TED con-

ference, if you want to succeed in business you’d bet-ter be able to deliver a TED-worthy presentation. TEDrepresents a bold, fresh, contemporary, compellingstyle that will help you win over any audience. MW

Carmine Gallo is a communications coach and bestselling

author. His latest book is Talk Like TED: The 9 Public-

Speaking Secrets of the World’s Top Minds (St. Martin’s

Press, 2014). He can be contacted at www.carminegallo.com

6. THE BIG PICTURECOMES BEFORETHE DETAILS

7. HUMOR MAKES PEOPLERECEPTIVE

C R E A T I V E I N S I G H T S


BY THERESA M. WELBOURNE, PhD

Human energy is required for

any type of action, and

energy is needed at work

to achieve goals. But

what do we know about exerting energy at work, and

how do we assure that employees are using energy at an

ideal rate to do their best?

Lastly, what is the role of a manager in optimizing employee energy and directing that energyat objectives which are important to the organization? Overall, this is an area that is notfamiliar to most managers. However, it’s a key topic for anyone who needs to lead people orprojects and achieve success.

DEFINING AND MEASURING ENERGYTurning to physics, we learn that energy is the ability to do work. There are two types ofenergy: potential (or stored) energy and kinetic (or moving) energy. As a manager, you havelittle control over your own and employees’ stored energy, but you do have a role to play inconverting that potential energy to moving energy and directing it toward the right goals.

In physics, energy is measured by looking at the rate at which it is used or the amount of energyit takes to do something. For example, scientists examine the amount of energy it takes to raisetemperature by one degree or to lift something. For our research purposes, we have created adefinition and measurement of energy at work. These metrics have been used to study humanenergy and learn how to help managers be more effective directors of human energy.

Energy defined: Energy is the internal force available for you to exert at work (ability to work).This is our version of potential energy.

Energy measured: Energy is measured by assessing the level of energy it takes for an employee

Becoming an Energy DirectorTo Lead and Achieve


to be at his or her best at work (how energy is used). This is our version of kinetic energy.

Going beyond physics, we have gathered numerous types of qualitative metrics on energy. Forexample, we ask employees what it feels like to be optimally energized at work. They have listedthe following adjectives:

“Passionate, aligned, vigorous, intense, confident, motivated, involved, committed, clear goals,clarity, positive, working as a team—one energy, performing at peak level, buzz from working,positive momentum, excited, shared purpose, delivery, ambitious, fulfilled, high dynamism,confident, can do.”

Energy is a concept that has scientific rigor, and it also is something that employeesunderstand. Another way to think about energy is to examine the world of sports and sportsphysiology. A simple example comes from how we start new exercise programs. If you do notexert enough energy, you’re not burning enough calories and will be less likely to achieve yourgoals. However, if you exert too much energy, you are physically at risk of doing harm to thebody. Most people cannot handle overexertion for long. When you start an exercise routine,you are given guidelines about optimal heart rates and how to work out in a target zone.

Why would it be any different when exerting energy at work? Why do we think the humanmind and body can multitask, work long hours, and continue to go “above and beyond” andnot be at risk of harm? It’s unrealistic to think that energy in the workplace is any differentfrom energy exerted when exercising or during other activities.

Energy at work must be optimized and directed to assure success, and the work we all docontributes to the optimization of our own and others’ energy. The role that managers play ismission critical for directing energy.

HOW TO OPTIMIZE AND DIRECT EMPLOYEE ENERGYFrom physics, we also know that energy cannot be created or destroyed. Therefore, a managercan do two things:

� Create ideal conditions for energy conversion, from potential to kinetic energy� Direct energy to useful and important tasks

The director of a symphony orchestra is responsible for helping each individual by creatingconditions under which he or she can perfect individual talents. When they are conducted ordirected, the individuals come together in a harmonic work of art. This is the job of everymanager—directing and optimizing conditions for work.

The laws of human energy at work include the following:

� Energy is all about optimization, not maximization.� The optimal energy level, where an individual works at his or her best, is different foreveryone. There is no magic number, and you can’t use the same methods of energyoptimization for all employees.

� Energy optimization alone is not enough for high performance. Energy needs to bedirected at the right goals.

� Energy fluctuates. Big swings are bad for performance.� Employees do best when they can work in “the zone,” at a pace where they are mostproductive. This pace varies by person.

� There are occupational differences in the best energy levels for employees. For example,


sales professionals work best at a higher energy level than do engineers or programmers,who tell us they need moderate exertion levels to concentrate.

� A manager’s energy affects employee energy. It’s catching.

MANAGING LEADERS’ ENERGY AT WORK If energy is catching, then it’s important for managers to evaluate their own energy at workand learn how to optimize and direct their energy. It’s hard to help employees optimize theirenergy if your energy is suboptimal. Unfortunately, managers are having a tough timeachieving these objectives.

In the Leadership Pulse®, a major research project we do with a sample of leaders around theworld (www.leadershippulse.com), we have been tracking managers’ energy since 2003. InFigure 1, you’ll find the trend data since 2009.

When we measure energy, we use a validated metric that is based on more than 1 million datapoints on employee energy. We have used the metric and process in more than 50 countries, andit predicts numerous outcomes (such as productivity, quality, safety, customer satisfaction,turnover, 360 ratings ofperformance, turnover, patientsatisfaction, and more types ofindividual, team, and firm-level outcomes, including 10-year survival and stockprice growth at the firm level).

The metric ranges from 0 to10, with 0 being a report of noenergy at work. The numbersmove up the scale from low tomedium to high energy. Atabout the number 8.5, themetric shows that there is too much stimulus affecting the employee and the energy level isstarting to be negatively affected, indicating the individual is at risk of lower performance or

burnout. Energy, as we measure it, isan optimization construct. Being atthe maximum on energy is a badthing. Figure 2 shows the energygraphic and questions used in the lastsurvey conducted for the LeadershipPulse research project.

In Figure 2, you can see that we asktwo questions to obtain quantitativedata: What is your energy today, andwhat is your energy level at your best?These two questions are used to assessrisk levels. In the same way that anexercise coach would track a client’starget heart rate, managers can assessemployee energy and the risk level of

6.71

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Figure 1: Energy Trend for All Leadership Participants

Energy

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Figure 2: Energy Questions for the Leadership Pulse Survey

Think of energy as the degree of internal force or power that propels your individual actions at work. You can respond with any number on the scale, from 0 to 10 (it's OK to use decimals such as 5.5, 6.8, etc.).

1. Overall, how would you rate your current energy level at work? (Enter a number from 0 to 10 using the Energy Pulse scale on left.)

2. What is your energy level where you are at your best at work? (Enter a number from 0 to 10 using the Energy Pulse scale on left.)

3. Please share the factors that are affecting your energy at work. The more detail you can provide, the better, as we are trying to uncover and share the drivers of optimal energy.

10 - Excessively high - too much going on, at riskof burnout, can't sustain this level of activity and beat your best.

7.5 High energy level

5 Medium energy level

2.5 Low energy level

Zero - no energy for work (sick, tired, burned out,distracted)

© 1997-2014, eePulse, Inc.


their teams. For our Leadership Pulse sample, we show the trend data, which indicates inFigure 1 that energy is on the rise. Is this good or bad, though? It’s the gap between “energytoday” and “energy at your best” that tells the risk story.

To determine the team energy risk distribution in Figure 3, we subtracted “energy at best” from“energy today” and then took the absolute value of that score. Shown are gaps, or points,between “energy today” and “energy at best.”

Our research shows that a one-point difference between “energy today” and “energy at best” isan indicator that an employee is at risk of lower performance, burnout, or leaving the firm.Therefore, for the Leadership Pulse sample, we calculated the gap between ideal energy andenergy today, plotting the number of points and showing the percent of the 550 participatingindividuals in each bucket. In the most recent Pulse, 52% of respondents were more than a fullpoint from their best energy (see Figure 3).

This means 52% of leaders who responded are at risk of lower performance. And if energy iscatching, this says that even more employees may be at risk.

ASSESS YOUR OWN ENERGY AT WORKThe first thing any manager of people or projects should do is assess his or her own energy atwork. If your energy is suboptimal, then diagnose what’s affecting your energy and how youcan change your environment to get “in your own zone.”

To assess your energy at work, use the sample survey in Figure 2. To find your “gap score,”subtract the energy level where you are at your best (question 2) from the energy today score(question 1), or question 1 - question 2. Your gap will be either positive or negative. If the gap is more than one, this is an at-risk indicator.

With your number in hand, ask these questions:

�What’s affecting your energy at work today?�What can you change to get to the point where you areat your best?� If there's a short-term issue that you know will keep youin the at-risk state for some period of time, make arecovery plan. What will you do when the situation isover? How do you get back to being at your best?�How can others help you?

Next, track your energy every week; keep a diary and focuson what is increasing or decreasing your energy at work.Start to learn what you can do to stay in your best zone.

When your own energy is optimized, then take those personal lessons to your team. Learn to bean energy director by helping every person working with you to be at his or her own best.

HELPING EMPLOYEES OPTIMIZE THEIR ENERGYThe second body of work for any manager concerns helping employees optimize and directtheir energy at work. A manager’s efforts will improve individual well-being, teamperformance, and overall organizational success. Here are two steps to take:

Create conditions for optimal energy conversion. In our research, we examined what

17.7%

8.6%

21.6% 25.7%

26.5%

Figure 3: Team Energy Risk Distribution for All Leadership Participants

Zero pts

0.01 to 0.50 pts

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2.01 pts or more


happens to either increase or decrease energy into suboptimal levels. Using open-endedcomment data, we found that two overall areas were important for creating ideal energyconditions. The first is all about relationships. We used a broad definition of relationships andfound that the following were discussed by employees:

� Me and my job� Me and my company� Me and my peers� Me and the customers with whom I work� Me and my career� Me and the leaders in the organization

About 30% of the comments were on these topics. Thus, diagnosing the state of your team’srelational capital—the value of all these relationships—can help focus your attention onactions that will improve conditions for energy conversation and create optimal energy.

Focus on direction and do it frequently. The other 70% of open-ended comments were allabout direction. Employees were energized or de-energized by the following:

� Unclear direction, with too many projects being added and no one clarifying priorities� A change in direction they are not told about� No direction, where it’s not about strategy, it’s about what to accomplish this week

In our research and client work, we find that direction continues to be a challenge, not just forentry-level employees but for individuals at all levels of a firm. The high rate of changeexperienced by organizations is affecting employees and creating unclear priorities or perhapstoo many number-one jobs. Helping employees by creating frequent direction discussions canhave positive effects on energy everywhere.

Learning to be an energy director requires knowledge of the energy optimization and directingprocess. Effective managers assess their employees’ energy, understand what’s impacting energylevels overall, know about recovery patterns, and continually seek to help staff direct theirenergy at the activities that will create the most positive outcomes.

DRAWING CONCLUSIONSThere’s a lot of talk today about employee engagement. Even though millions, and perhapsbillions, of dollars have been spent on improving engagement, the numbers continue to decline.Something is missing in our understanding of this work, and we propose that employee energyat work may be the misunderstood component linking people to performance.

Also, energy fluctuates tremendously from week to week, so studying it once a year or everyother year is problematic and not useful for the everyday manager. Managers who are high-impact energy directors measure employee energy frequently, teach employees how tooptimize their energy, examine their own personal energy and how it is impacting their people,and create an ongoing process of optimizing and directing employee energy at work. MW

Theresa M. Welbourne, PhD, is president and CEO of eePulse Inc. She is the FirsTier Banks Distinguished Professor

of Business and director of the Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Welbourne’s

work focuses on human capital and leadership strategies that drive growth, innovation, and high performance. She

can be reached at [email protected]

Bring out the best in your team—take The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People for Managers



BY ADAM CANWELL, VISHALLI DONGRIE,NEIL NEVERAS, AND HEATHER STOCKTON

Developing leaders is a

major human capital need

in today’s organizations.

Companies face an urgent need to develop leaders at all levels, including bringing youngerleaders online faster, developing leaders globally, and keeping senior leaders relevant andengaged longer.

Leadership remains the number-one talent issue facing organizations around the world. InDeloitte’s 2014 Human Capital Trends survey, 86% of respondents rated it as “urgent” or“important.” But only 13% of respondents said they do an excellent job of developing leadersat all levels—the largest “readiness gap” in our 2014 survey.

Twenty-first-century leadership is different from that of earlier generations. Companies facenew leadership challenges, including developing millennials and multiple generations ofleaders, meeting the demand for leaders with global fluency and flexibility, building the abilityto innovate and inspire others to perform, and acquiring new levels of understanding ofrapidly changing technologies and new disciplines and fields.

For companies around the world, a shortage of leaders is one of the biggest impediments togrowth. This challenge is particularly acute today as the global recovery strengthens, companiesseek to rapidly grow their businesses in new markets, and older leaders begin to retire ataccelerating rates.

The executives in our 2014 global survey viewed leadership as the highest-priority issue of allthose we asked them about. Yet, despite the acknowledged importance of leadership, mostcompanies believe they are not meeting the challenge (see Figure 1).

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Developing

21st-CenturyLeadershipSkills


� Only 13% of companies in our survey rate themselves “excellent” in providing leadershipprograms at all levels—new leaders, next-generation leaders, and senior leaders

� 66% believe they are “weak” in their ability to develop millennial leaders, while only 5%rate themselves as “excellent”

� More than half (51%) have little confidence in their ability to maintain clear, consistentsuccession programs

� Only 8% believe they have “excellent” programs to build global skills and experiences

CRITICAL SKILLS NEEDED TO SUCCEEDNot only are companies not developing enough leaders, but they’re also not equipping theleaders they are building with the critical capabilities and skills needed to succeed.

Today’s market environment places a premium on speed, flexibility, and the ability to lead inuncertain situations. At the same time, the flattening of organizations has created an explosionin demand for leadership skills at every level.

Our research shows that foundational and new leadership skills are in high demand, including:� Business acumen: understanding the core business well� Collaboration: having the ability to build cross-functional teams� Global cultural agility:managing diversity and inclusion� Creativity: driving innovation and entrepreneurship� Customer-centricity: enhancing effective customer relationships� Influence and inspiration: setting direction and driving employees to achieve business goals� Building teams andtalent: developingpeople and creatingeffective teams

For example, a highlysuccessful global tech-nology company dis-covered that it neededfour leadership arche-types: entrepreneurswho can start a busi-ness; scale leaders whocan build up a business;efficiency leaders whoreduce costs andimprove operations; and fix-it leaders who turn businesses around.

The core capabilities for leadership are well understood. Yet Deloitte’s experience over the pastdecade suggests that the quality of leaders is declining. This would mean that companies needto reexamine and redesign their leadership development programs.

Our survey suggests this has become a highly urgent challenge for corporate leaders worldwide,

Figure 1: Current Leadership Programs Falling Short Number of respondents

Providing executive involvementand ownership of leadership

development 1,175

1,162

1,154

1,034

1,142

1,099Providing focused leadershipprograms for millennials

Providing leadership programs forall levels (new, next generation,

senior leaders)

Maintaining clear and current succession plans and programs

Including global skills andexperiences in leadership program

Providing experiential, role-based leadership programs

% of total number of responses

HR executives’ assessment of leadership program capability levels Weak Adequate Excellent

Graphic: Deloitte University Press I DUPress.com

34% 49%

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especially in Brazil, Mexico, and the Netherlands. Executives in few countries appeared to beprepared to meet this challenge (see Figure 2 above).

BUILDING THE LEADERSHIP PIPELINE Building a leadership pipeline requires a high level of sustained investment. The entire industryof leadership development represents a $14 billion marketplace. High-impact companies inthe United States spend more than $3,500 per person each year to develop midlevel leadersand more than $10,000 to develop senior leaders.

Strong leadership programs target leaders at all levels. At the early stages in the leadershippipeline, potential leaders need to acquire core skills in supervision and management, withfrequent assignments to round out their skills. Later in their careers, rising leaders mustunderstand all the business functions and how to run a P&L.

It is also critical to understand that, despite the proliferation of leadership fads, there are noshortcuts to building a leadership team that is broad and deep. A new leader typically needs 18

Figure 2: Urgency vs. Readiness: Who is Leading? Who is Lagging?

Netherlands

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Capability Gap Index (readiness - urgency) Capability gap grid

Leadership

Graphic: Deloitte University Press I DUPress.com

important Somewhat important (33.3) Important (66.6) 100 = Urgent ➔

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The Human Capital Capability Gap Index The Deloitte Human Capital Capability Gap Index is a research-based index that shows HR’s relative capability gap in addressing a given talent or HR-related problem. It is computed by taking an organization’s self-rated "readiness" and subtracting its "urgency," normalized to a 0-100 scale. For example, if an organization feels that an issue is 100% urgent and it also rates itself 100% capable and ready to address the issue, the capability gap would be zero. These gaps, which are almost always negative, can be compared against each other.

The capability gap grid By plotting the gaps on a grid (with readiness on the vertical and urgency on the horizontal), we can see how capability gaps vary among different countries and industries.• Capability gaps at the lower right part of the grid are those of high urgency and low readiness (areas that warrant major increases in investment). • Capability gaps at the upper right part of the grid are highly urgent, but companies feel more able to perform in these areas (they warrant investment but are lower priority than those at the bottom right).• Capability gaps on the left side of the grid are areas of lesser importance, and those lower in the grid are areas of less readiness.

Kenya

India

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United StatesArgentina

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months before feeling fully comfortable in a new role; for a midlevel leader, the time periodstretches from 24 to 36 months.

Although most companies develop somewhat rigid leadership tracks, they may be better servedby developing paths to leadership that are more flexible. Some leaders will move into a top role quickly due to situational needs or local talent gaps. Others will develop over the course ofmany years.

High-performing companies now develop leaders locally, tapping into the local culturalexperiences of potential leaders in each country. In a recent study of top-leadership progressionat a major energy company, we found that the paths for successful leaders in China weredramatically different from those for leaders in the United States. U.S.-based leaders took a moretraditional path through a predefined set of business assignments; successful leaders in Chinawere promoted much more rapidly in the energy company. This discovery led top managementto rethink the company’s traditional model and enable local teams to be more flexible in theleaders they develop.

THE IMPORTANCE OF LEADERSHIP STRATEGYBuilding leaders requires more than a portfolio of training programs. Senior executives shouldcreate a culture that broadens the opportunity for leaders to develop in new ways. This meansputting potential leaders in positions that stretch them beyond their current skill sets andcontinuously coaching and supporting leaders so that they can build their capabilities asrapidly as possible. While this requirement is increasingly well known, in our experience it issimply not widely adopted and practiced.

This process is relevant to all levels of the organization and to all generations of employees.High-potential millennial leaders are looking to be identified early and placed on accelerateddevelopment timetables. Midcareer leaders are looking for challenging roles that allow them tomake capability leaps—deepening and broadening their leadership skills to prepare them formore senior roles and new business challenges.

BUILDING A PATHWAY TO LEADERSHIPANZ, a leading Australian bank and financial services provider, set out to transform itself intoa “super-regional bank,” focused on achieving aggressive growth outside its home markets ofAustralia and New Zealand. To meet these goals, ANZ had to ensure that its leaders had thedistinctive set of capabilities necessary for the transition.

The first phase of the program built the foundation for organizational leadership in the regionthrough the development of a unique ANZ leadership model, with the full commitment of seniorexecutives. The model identified leaders at all levels of the organization and critical leadershiptransition points.

In the second phase, the program was deepened through the adoption of an informal online-learning tool implemented widely across the bank. A generalist banker program brought thenew strategy to one organizational level; an executive leader program was required for seniorexecutives; and recommended learning was introduced for first-time managers. A speakerseries brought the strategy to life for all staff.

Currently, in the third phase, the program has adopted a model of leaders teaching leaders,with a renewed focus on identifying and targeting high-potential leaders for the executiveleader program. Thus far, more than 5,400 people have completed programs in the pathway,


logging close to 110,000 hours of learning. Business results for the bank have continued toimprove throughout the strategy’s implementation. The bank is increasing its rate of internalleader promotions as well.

DEVELOPING LEADERS AT ALL LEVELS ENABLES MISSION SUCCESSFew organizations face more pressing demands for leadership than the U.S. Department ofDefense. With more than 1.4 million men and women on active duty, 1.1 million serving inNational Guard and Reserve forces, and 718,000 civilian personnel, the Department of Defenserequires leaders at all levels capable of understanding complex security threats around theworld, making split-second life-and-death decisions, and achieving mission success—all in

highly volatile, ambiguous, and continually changingenvironments.

To accomplish this goal, the department invests heavily indeveloping well-rounded leaders at all levels. Leadershiptraining is embedded into every stage of a military member’scareer. Completion of this training is typically required forpromotion and advancement, so leadership is effectively builtinto the department’s performance and rewards system.

Prospective officers—the high-potential leaders of themilitary—undergo four years of progressively morechallenging leadership training, either at a service academy orin an ROTC (Reserve Officers Training Corps) program,before they receive their commissions or first assignments.Officer candidates are pushed into leadership roles early andoften, allowing them to continually build their leadership skillsover time.

Upon graduation, officers typically receive leadership trainingat every stage of their careers. Those officers who reach the highest levels of command typicallyattend at least three formal schools, with specific leadership training that ranges from severalweeks to nine months. During this time, officers focus solely on improving their leadershipskills and are free from day-to-day assignments that distract them from their training.

At every stage in their career, officers are pushed to expand their leadership skills throughtraining and hands-on field experience. Critical skills such as teamwork, clear communication,contingency planning, adaptability, time management, and aligning priorities and strategy arecontinually reinforced. The result is a leadership training program that embodies best practicesand builds leaders at every level of the organization.

WHERE COMPANIES CAN STARTBuilding a global leadership pipeline takes time, investment, and executive focus. Potentialstarting points include the following:

� Engage top executives to develop leadership strategy and actively govern leadershipdevelopment. Focus on gaining executive commitment to the process. Two trends aregaining traction: First, companies are involving their executive teams, and increasingly theirboards of directors, in the leadership process by providing them visibility to and solicitingtheir input on the leadership pipeline, gaps, and programs. Second, business leaders are


recognizing that their direct involvement in leadership pipelines and gaps is critical toanticipating challenges in the development and implementation of future strategies.

� Align and refresh leadership strategies and development to evolving business goals.Different business goals—growth, innovation, quality, new markets, acquisitions—requiredifferent combinations of leadership experiences and capabilities. As businesses, technology,and competitive and regulatory environments rapidly change, companies are challenged tocreate new types of leaders with more varied and deeper leadership experiences.

� Focus on three aspects of developing leaders:

1. Develop leaders at all levels. Companies are run by first-line supervisors and middlemanagement. Invest in these levels as well as in top leadership roles.

2. Develop global leaders locally. The days of expatriate leaders are over; high-performingcompanies build local leaders from the ground up.

3. Develop a succession mindset. It takes years to build great leaders; the pipeline shouldbe growing continuously.

� Implement an effective leadership program. Each company needs a unique leadershipprogram. Successful organizations often ensure that their programs feature current leadersteaching future leaders—an idea that has been around for some time but has not beenpracticed widely enough. Assign a top business and HR executive to take responsibility, andbe prepared to spend significant time and money. In developed markets, this investmentcan be in the range of $2,000 to $10,000 per leader every year. Focus on how to developleaders more quickly by simplifying competency models, using action learning, andassessing leaders with analytics.

BOTTOM LINEAs in previous years, leadership continues to top the priority list in the 2014 Human CapitalTrends survey. The challenge is to develop leadership pipelines that are global, broad, and deep,reaching to every level of the organization. This process involves a significant investment oftime and resources and a commitment to leadership from the board and executive team.Perhaps the biggest challenge is for business and HR leaders to ask whether they are confidentthat they are doing enough and whether they are exploring new approaches to moving theneedle on their organization’s leadership requirements. MW

Adam Canwell is the human capital leader, Deloitte Australia, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu. He has a strong track

record of working with leadership teams on identifying priorities and leading programs to effectively deliver change.

Canwell has deep experience in the design and delivery of leadership programs to increase their performance.

Vishalli Dongrie is the talent, performance, and rewards leader, Deloitte India, Deloitte Consulting India Pvt Ltd.

Dongrie is considered one of India’s most impactful leaders in talent management, leadership, and organization

design. In the talent, performance, and rewards space, she has led large international assignments in leadership

capability building, top-management assessment and development centers, career paths, and succession planning.

Neil Neveras is the global leadership services leader, Deloitte Consulting LLC. Neveras helps clients solve their most

complex leadership and talent challenges in areas including strategy, competencies, assessment, program design,

succession planning, coaching, career paths, and success metrics.

Heather Stockton is the human capital leader, financial services industry, Deloitte Canada. She also is global

human capital leader for the financial services industry. Through her work in developing and executing strategic

plans, Stockton has become an advisor to executives who are undertaking business transformation, undergoing

merger integration, and changing their operating model.


BY ROBERT C. McMILLAN

Accepting your own

potential will not

automatically open doors for you, but it will allow you

to see the opportunities that stand before you.

You often have to open those doors of opportunity yourself,and sometimes—to be blunt—you have to flat-outknock them down. The greater the opportunity is, themore challenging the door will be. Sometimes life’ssurprises and challenges force you to accept your

potential and put it into action.

The same can be said about accepting your leadership potential. What leadership potential areyou aware of that you may have but have not fully accepted and placed into full action? Whatbehaviors, skills, and talents are you ignoring? What is limiting the awareness of your potentialto take action? Just as a smartphone needs apps to fulfill its potential, to become a leader youneed to apply “apps” in your thinking. In the Next-Gen Leadership System, accepting yourpotential is called the “Acceptance Application.”

Leadership acceptance is different from leadership awareness. Leadership awareness is a resultof recognizing one’s ability to lead others. Leadership acceptance means embracing one’sleadership potential and releasing it into action. Others accept your ability to lead them.Leaders have to connect with others to lead them.

RECOGNIZING GENERIC LEADERSThere are several types of leaders. The type I’m concentrating on here is the “generic leader.”These are general leaders who have accepted their accountability to lead. They direct activitiesand assignments well and monitor progress. However, they struggle with identifying processchallenges and issues, given their commitment to timelines. They like to control the decision-making process. But when it comes to group thinking and collaborating to solve cross-boundary issues, they may become inflexible because of their emotional ties to the process.

There also are “brand leaders.” These leaders always stand out from the rest because they havedeveloped their own brand of leadership. In contrast, generic leaders have not developed theirown unique brand of leadership, whether they are new to the leadership “marketplace” or havespent their entire careers there. They operate generically. They often are generic because they have

The Generic Leader NetworkAnd the “Acceptance App”


adopted someone else’s leadership brand. The generic leader is packaging and marketing his orher leadership style from that of a mentor, supervisor, or brand that already exists in the culture.

As with any system, generic leaders also come with limitations, which have to do with userexpectations to a large extent. Leaders often place on themselves false expectations—they feelpressured to play all leadership roles and positions simultaneously. What I call “2G–GenericNetwork leaders” have several limitations, and each can be transformed into benefits ifappropriately developed. One of their limitations is that generic leaders are appointed to theirpositions, which is challenging in organizations that require leadership acceptance beforeappointment. They are largely transactional, but not transformational, leaders.

The 2G–Generic leader, in many instances, is the most common type of leader and the“network” that most professionals who are given leadership responsibility reside on. Mostgeneric leaders are in management positions, but CEOs and officers operate on this network aswell. In many instances, it is their primary residence because they lead based on position, title,and rank.

Generic leaders have been observed by peers, supervisors, and management as professionalswith the ability to lead a task, assignment, function, process, or project well before they areconsidered for a formal leadership position. They consistently demonstrate their ability toconnect with, build relationships with, and oversee professionals. 2G–Generic leaders havemore than just the potential to be leaders; they have the skills and competencies. They have experienced leadership before being promoted into a position of power or authority over others.

Operating on the 2G Leadership Network requires the followingpersonal oath: Accept your leadership potential; accept your

leadership responsibility; and accept the fact thatothers must accept you as a leader. If you arewilling to do these three things, and putinto action the right behaviors, you areon your way to becoming a great leader.

To be effective on the 2G–GenericLeader Network, leaders must followprocesses, procedures, and businessrules to a T. On this network, there is not

a lot of flexibility to creatively change, alter,or modify set processes on the fly. Therefore,

generic leaders are the referees who ensureprofessionals are executing assignments within the

rules. To this extent, they are designed to limit changes, risks,and errors. To achieve this, generic leaders rely heavily on structure and teams.

The best generic leaders are individual contributors who work with their teams as they managethe overall activities and monitor progress as necessary. Generic leaders establish positiverelationships with teams and individual contributors. They recognize that everyone is a leader,


and their actions reflect mutual respect.Generic leaders who optimize the2G–Generic Leader Network make timeto visit the floor, engage with aspiringleaders, and insert themselves into theprocess without controlling the decisionsand actions of others by using theirauthority. They don’t have to check inbecause they never check out. To become

high-potential leaders and establish recognition as effective generic leaders, they simply leadwhile doing.

In addition to being great generic generalists, generic leaders also are good communicators.They have the ability to communicate in visual and auditory mediums. People are eithervisual or auditory learners, and leaders must have the ability to determine which medium ismost effective for their teams and individual contributors. Generic leaders also must use skillsto connect with professionals who may be categorized as introverts or extroverts. The abilityto be a good communicator presents leaders with strategic opportunities to create an environment where employees can offer ideas and suggestions on how to deliver productsor services more effectively, ultimately improving customer satisfaction both internally and externally.

The generic leader is the key leadership role that affects quality, performance, productivity, andprofitability. 2G–Generic leaders are a great resource and critical to any organization and team.

DEVELOPING GENERIC LEADERS Unfortunately, being accepted as a leader by others is not standard protocol in corporateAmerica, but it should be a part of every organization’s leadership system. We all know peoplewho are in leadership positions, and as we observe their behavior, we ask, “How did they get inthat position? Who hired them?” In many instances, this unfortunate situation occurs becausethe organization lacks an effective leadership system, resulting in people being promoted intoformal leadership positions such as team leads, managers, or directors without thedevelopment of their potential. As a result, other employees do not consciously accept andacknowledge the person’s leadership abilities.

Generally, these events place the leader and the organization at a huge disadvantage, becauseemployees are clueless about the leader’s abilities, potential, and capabilities and often areresistant to that leader. This also creates a scenario in which the leader is not sure of his or herown potential and has not fully accepted the leadership role. The key to success for the GenericNetwork leader is to reach leadership acceptance from others first and limit their use of the“leadership-by-appointment card.”

A major limitation to 2G–Generic leaders is their inability to separate their approach, style, andbehaviors from the culture in which they operate. In terms of tenure, some generic leaders arenew leaders and many are intermediate leaders; in both instances, their leadership style is mostoften a carbon copy of other leaders’ styles, because generic leaders tend to copy someone else’sbrand while trying to create or discover their own. It is critical for generic leaders to spend timeself-reflecting and developing their own unique approach to leadership that will counter the


perception that they are leadership clones among those who accept but have not fully embracedtheir leadership.

The biggest mistake you could make with generic leaders is to place them in the role of beingtransformational leaders. Generic leaders are the complete opposite of transformationalleaders. It’s not that they cannot be transformational. Instead, their position requirestransactional thinking and processing.

Transactional leaders are focused on the short-term processes and procedures that result in thetransaction of a product or service. In contrast, transformational leaders are focused on thelong term, identifying value-based outcomes that in the future will require changes totransactional processes and procedures to be obtained. Because of complex business issues andchallenges, the expectations of generic leaders can at times become blurred as people look forthem to be transformational.

For generic leaders to achieve their maximum potential, they must focus their energy on theshort term of transactional leadership and be able to collaborate with transformational leadersto improve overall business goals and objective outcomes.

As a 2G–Generic leader, you need a “mindware” application that will operate as “virusprotection software” to protect your self-esteem and confidence and, at the same time, help youprocess and accept the reality of your leadership situation in your professional and personal life.

USING YOUR OWN “ACCEPTANCE APP”Generic leaders accept what they can’t change and what they can, and they know the differencebetween the two. The best generic leaders take expectations and develop specific outcomeswith measurable steps to achieve the desired results. Successful generic leaders have aleadership “Acceptance App” that guides them to accept their leadership situation and role andhelps them decipher the things they can change and those they cannot.

2G–Generic leaders must accept early on in their role that there will be times when theyinteract with professionals at all levels who may have false perceptions of them, question theirleadership ability, and make their leadership experience miserable. This may come as a surprisefor many new leaders and can, quite frankly, create such low confidence that some leadershipcareers may end prematurely. These leaders have not learned how to deal with “professionalhaters” who try to affect a leader’s thinking and actions and sabotage his or her career. TheAcceptance App is critical, giving leaders the necessary defenses to identify the haters andadjust their emotional intelligence to conquer them. MW

Robert C. McMillan is a transformationalist and a leadership coach and consultant to emerging, aspiring executive

leaders, teams, and organizations. To learn more about The Next Gen Leader™, visit www.robertcmcmillan.com

Adapted, with permission of the publisher, from The Next Gen Leader: Cutting Edge Strategies to Make You

the Leader You Were Born to Be by Robert C. McMillan. Copyright 2014, Robert C. McMillan. Published by

Career Press.

There’s No Place Like the ClassroomWe never stop learning. Throughout our lives, from school to careers to what we do in ourleisure time, we’re acquiring new skills. And the best way to learn behavior-based skills isthrough practice. You cannot learn to ride a bike, hit a golf ball, or fly a plane from a book.

In order to learn, you need some combination of information, expert feedback, andexperience, either simulated or from real-world examples. In this issue of MWorld, CarmineGallo noted that while TED presenters base their presentations on solid facts, informationalone will not communicate a message effectively. The best TED presenters have told stories

that helped the audience synthesize the information and engaged them with humor. He also found thatpresenters who exhibited passion, used visuals instead of text, and didn’t overload their audiences withinformation were able to communicate messages that had a high level of retention.

Training is no different, and Gallo’s findings are echoed by research from Training Industry, Inc.,which found that managers overwhelmingly prefer face-to-face learning and believe it’s more effectivethan training alternatives. (See the First-Time Manager Training Study, 2012, and Training for Leaders of TechnicalProfessionals Study, 2014, at www.trainingindustry.com) An effective facilitator doesn’t simply present bestpractices; he punctuates them with examples from his own experience and translates them into engag-ing experiences that learners retain.

This style of communication also leads to higher revenues. In our cover story, Brian Tracy talksabout his selling model that he has taught to more than 2 million people worldwide. He emphasizesthat sales techniques need to be adapted based on real-world interaction with customers. Salespeopleneed to get feedback from their customers by asking questions and adjusting the sales pitch to theirneeds; that is the most effective method of closing a sale. This highly productive consultative approachrequires sophisticated communication skills best learned through iterative practice.

The combination of learning through personal experience, interaction, and feedback is what we atAmerican Management Association are all about. AMA has more than 90 years of experience in deter-mining what individuals, teams, and organizations need, and we have developed a unique brand ofexperiential learning. We believe the most effective training still occurs in a classroom where studentscan practice what they learn in a safe environment and get live feedback. We’ve even found a way tomake online learning effective through interactive exercises in which participants get coaching frompeers and our expert faculty.

I encourage our readers to explore all the resources AMA offers—especially face-to-face, experien-tial learning, whether in our many open-enrollment programs or through our highly effective custom-delivered programs worldwide—to improve their skills, their teams, and their organizations.

O U R V I E W


Edward T. ReillyPresident and CEOAmerican Management Association

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