Archive for the ‘Stuck’ Category
Sunday, February 3rd, 2008 |
So I don’t often get any emails, but I have that feature turned on for my feedburner feed so I get do get some, but i’d rather have comments - turned it off - snap. My 10 Tips for dealing with the fact that you will never leave your job post has received 3 emails and NOT from 3 people I know, so I thought I would follow up on it. Each of them referenced the “Greening Your Own Grass” concept - weird I thought, because sometimes I’m just cheese, which was the intent. So like any good opportunist, I googled the term and it appears there’s no obvious content around this, so what the heck. It even has got a kitschy pop psychology ring to it.
I went out looking online for ideas, since I haven’t thought the concept much more than cheesy bullet I created. So I decided to extend the concept to support the hiring requirements of democracy, an online entity of some sort in the marketing sector, but I changed them a little, to fit the context of greening.
- “The ability to unlearn.” - After you are in a business for a while take the opportunity to engage new kids on the block and get their input. A refreshing view is always a good thing, plus you might find something simple which could add significant value.
- “The desire to add value.” - In principle this is the enjoy what you do concept with a little Locke thrown in. Don’t become a pass-thru entity. Routing work “packets” isn’t a job, it’s a network appliance . A router is cheap, replaceable and boring.
- “The imagination of a child.” Creativity is the first thing to go after being in a role for a while. Wake up and be excited about trying new ways of doing your job. Take 10 minutes a day researching on what you do and find out what others like you have done - repackaging is still creative, if not fully original.
- “A global perspective.” - This is one of those onion concepts - first layer is understand the big picture, identify your ability to impact the big picture and to deliver. The other is more literally - understand your connection to supporting the changing market place, which is going global.
- Soul. While the democracy list takes a jab at James Blunt, it’s about identifying how you can find your corporate flow. Perfect balance of challenge and capabilities.
So as I think about Greening YOUR Own grass, is about finding your corporate flow. Flow is basic chart, which most marketing and tech folks should be able to interpret. I first discovered the construct of Flow in a Leisure Lifestyle course during undergrad, these diagrams come from a person who synthesized some chap named Professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi presentation in Sydney on 17 March 1999…
So this Flow thing just might work to start the greening. So keep a hiring attitude and a desire to find your flow in the workplace. There’s $.02 on something I never thought I would post on, my Leisure class.
Posted in Leadership, Marketing, Stuck | 3 Comments »
Saturday, January 19th, 2008 |
I must admit - not my idea, stole if from an outro on an Onion News piece, Child Bankrupts Make-a-Wish Foundation. (you will feel guilty for laughing at it) If you never check in on the Onion, I encourage you to do so, fun stuff and you can get a printed version in Denver at Sancho’s.
So I saw this the other day when I got home from New York and thought about it a while, asked some folks questions about this and got an array of great ideas. Most of them are why you might want to stay where you are - find an opportunity to grow and expand your contribution. That’s right - pollyanna optimism, with a dash of opportunist thrown in.
Another way to look at it this post might be: 10 ways to optimize your current gig…
- Stop the Alerts! - turn off your daily monster reminder that there is something else you could be doing. I did this a long time ago and I am better for it. Basically there is no need to find out about that analyst job at a cool web 2.0 company. Your career builder and monster reminders encourage/foster thoughts like: Maybe they give weekly massages? or It might be cool to get a haircut in my office or It might be good to just be a network admin again. Nothing good can come from a free haircut - think work life balance.
- Understand what YOU do: This esoteric concept is a fairly interesting way to grow professionally. Find others like YOU in your industry. Caution: This may foster Zen like clarity and a renewed passion for what you do.
- Understand WHY your role is important: You aren’t getting paid because you are really good at pouring coffee for the CFO when he or she randoms into the break room, in fact you probably internal and external constituents that depend on you, so find out what they expect from you. Do a little ad hoc survey of your “customers” and understand what their value drivers are.
- Get a life! This is the easiest way to bring joy into the workplace. Find a way to jam your off time with satisfaction - we don’t work for nothin! Plus all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Get a hobby, fall in love, join a support group - whatever.
- Work hard and play hard. Duplicate? Nope. You need a life, before you can have fun. So I guess get a life, has more to do with finding folks who you can hang with and once you have friends you can play. Think about it playing with yourself is a little boring — I like action action figures like the next geek, but other humans ROCK!
- Mentor: Find a mentor - be a mentor. If you have someone you can learn from it makes everyday an opportunity to grow, the other side of the street is that if you can find someone to mentor, YOU can improve your organization. Upside: You might actually build a relationship, which will set you on the path to finding a life. Yes this a self referencing looping structure for career improvement in a 10 tips post.
- Push Yourself: After being in a role or company for a long time you will ultimately get a little complacent. Well I’m here to tell you, if you don’t expect excellence from yourself or growth - no one else will and that’s a sure fire way to want to turn your monster alerts back on.
- Green your own Grass - This is a concept that if you have a life, expect excellence and understand what you do, you just might enjoy what you do. We all long for greener grass, especially in Atlanta, but you have to find a way to “be the ball“. If you have a reasonably good gig, you like the people you work with and are good at what you do - take advantage of it. Think about it - if you are lucky enough to have this kind of gig or you think you may have an opportunity to develop it where you are - what a cool place to be in a career!
- Switch it Up - Been there a while? See if you can get a different role in your company. Use your tribal knowledge, leverage your mentor and passion for excellence to learn something NEW. This is definitely greening your own grass!
- Engage: Remember - You work with people! Develop relationships! Execute towards shared goals, actively participate in the processes and be a collaborative team. We all got something to learn or share - no matter where we are.
As you may have realized by now, I just needed a snazzy title to frame some leadership concepts. Cheers!
Posted in Fluff, Leadership, Nugget, Stuck | 4 Comments »
Thursday, November 22nd, 2007 |
Over the course of the stuck in the middle series which have examined several leadership personas (the geologist, collaborator, Visualist, Vassalizer, amoeba and the fence mender) - to date these were leadership styles which represented themes in execution - today’s Leader is different. Today’s leadership persona is really about a type of leader who sources their content from a fairly interesting media type, not quite pulp fiction, not quite the economist.
So where does this leader source their idea’s? The dreaded In flight magazine - yes that rag which is saturated in hokey travel, the latest gadgets to get and trends in business. The leader who manages by in flight magazine or a MBIFM is typically fairly conservative and not overly creative. I would like to think a CMO, CEO or other C with the tendacies of finding “good ideas” in magazines would find them in Ad Age, CIO.com or another credible source, but the Get Me One Of These (GMOOT) orders from this leader are typically sourced in Sky Magazine, WorldTraveler or the American Way magazine. Don’t get me wrong - I’ve got cool logo gear and have had great meals thanks to in flight magazines, but I’ve never had a great idea because of one. So why is it that this leader uses in flight magazines rather than real magazines? I really don’t know, I think it might be that he or she just spends too much time on a plane and is possibly too cheap to buy a magazine at Hudson News. In years gone by when airline’s supplied other magazines, it was a lot harder to figure out this leader, but in days of cut backs and snack packs it’s considerably easier. Not only is this leader conservative, they might just be a little naive as well in thinking others haven’t read the article as they usurp and pervert the concepts gleaned from Salt Lake to Denver. In general - don’t all of us spend the 7 minutes required on a flight to read the important headlines and articles? For this leader ideas from Sky Magazine become an imperative - if his or her organization isn’t doing it yet - they should be and NOW. The reality is that if it’s already in an in flight magazine you might be a little late, but I do believe in the adage that it is better late than never, but does it really need a SWAT team? Take this month’s management duh on customers and the product from Continental Magazine:
“I think companies have spent too much time thinking about their products and their brands, and not enough time thinking about their customers,” explains Rust, who serves as chair of the Department of Marketing at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. “Really, they ought to be organized around customers, rather than around products and brands.”…“It’s a matter of communicating with customers interactively. We do something. They react in a certain way. They communicate with us. We have various touch points with the customer. And you can take a look at that relationship in terms of how it unfolds over time.”
The problem with MBIFM’s isn’t the idea, but how they misinterpret the idea. The quote above is as much about target market and “the Product”, as it is about transforming how a company interacts with their customer in new channels and in a transparent way. If you are effectively managing a product customer communication, understanding and interaction should always be part of the plan - I digress. As a use case, this type of an article for a MBIFM will start with challenging the team to not talk about the products and deemphasize the brand rather than encouraging an open culture which embraces communication with the customer via social media.
NOTE: The article never used the term social media, so this use case also proves out that you only get cursory information in such magazines.
The poorly pitched project kick off and the general misunderstanding caused by sleepy reading will take the SWAT team at least 3 meetings to correct course on. I’ve actually brought a suspected article to a meeting once to clarify things on the 4th meeting, I was getting annoyed that folks were taking the leader a little too seriously/literal on the project charter and initial interpretation. This group mentality is the difference between the sprit and the letter of a leaders charter, the same type of over simplification a MBFM makes when acting on in flight content.
The impact of MBIFM’s reading habits are peppered in most of their interactions and sometimes used as proof points that they are well read, cool and worldly. They talk about travel to Iceland, new gadgets and great places for dinner in other cities they’d like to eat at. Don’t get me wrong, I use Sports Illustrated to have sporty things to chat about - so you can’t fault them, but please don’t tell me how cool the hot springs are in Iceland.
At the end of the day, these platinum medallion travelers have 3 to 5 paragraphs of all things new and they will wield this knowledge as a sword. To account for this type of leader, I recommend you make sure to spend some time every month to read the airline Hub’s magazine for your airport thoroughly and browse other airline mags online where available. Few things are more fun than quoting back factoids from an article, building out a conversation by speaking to a featured Spa in North Carolina or the scallops at LaCôte in New Orleans with this leader. Bottom line: While most of these ideas are typically a late and not fully understood - they are well intentioned and can be used for good within the organization.
A MBIFM’s group is very easy to execute in, since every new leader idea is all about NOW and allows for idea extension in the execution phase. Meaning it offers the the thoughtful middle manager the opportunity to streamline the concept and steer the SWAT team towards new versions of the idea. Usually if an idea is in American Eagle Latitudes, there’s already a new permutation in practice and you can actually use a late idea as an opportunity to innovate.
So how do you find one of these in your office if you don’t travel or prefer not touching a magazine touched by hundreds of other people? Look for the leader with really cool things to play with in their offices which they probably ordered from Skymall and who has inspirational posters from successories. You could also just make it part of your online reading, so stay armed and ready with your own MBIFM Content at iTravelNet’s Directory of In-Flight Magazines.
CONFESSION: I once used an in flight magazine source to prove an idea wasn’t whacky and out there. I did of course use it as a trojan horse to move the project to a new incarnation of the concept.
Technorati Tags: Sky Magazine, WorldTraveler, Skymall, in flight magazine
Posted in Leadership, Stuck, Travel | No Comments »
Sunday, October 14th, 2007 |
As I continue to look at leadership tactics and styles, one of the more interesting management personas is the Vassalizer. A leader can be an all-in Vassalizer or only possess some of the traits, depending on their skills and ambitions. The root of the word isn’t in Vasaline, as in a smooth operator or slick mofo - but instead vassal. The Vassalizer is one who makes vassals, my own definition. Yes, I could have called it the Lord persona, but I prefer more a obtuse reference on this since this persona in principle is slow to recognize and generally hard to wrap your head around.
So with my newly coined word for the maker of vassals being a little obscure, I’ll proposed another title which may work to help conceptualize this persona: the bizaaro team builder. Yes, bazaaro as in Superman’s Bizaaro World where everything is opposite.
So where a typical team builder guides, coaches and assembles people towards a common goal for the good for group, this is not how it works in the bizaaro serfdom. The Vassalizer creates an group of indentured folk over time who are working to ensure his or her success, while convincing them all is right with the world and there is only upside for them.
Make no bones about it - you like this person, they’re intelligent, you find them mildly interesting as a person and they appear to be executing more than the average bear from a distance. Just remember actively does not equal results, but the Vassalizer LOVES cross functional status reporting and activity is the key metric presented for his/her team, while other groups are just not producing the necessary results for his/her team to meet their obligations to the business.
This persona is more interested the status report than the actual work - the status report becomes the vehicle for building the serfdom. He who’s group authors the status report wins, no really…. This is a power which can be used for good or ill and the later is the Vassalizer’s use case. Perhaps we should ensure we are all aligned on what a vassal is.
vas·sal [vas-uhl] –noun
1. (in the feudal system) a person granted the use of land, in return for rendering homage, fealty, and usually military service or its equivalent to a lord or other superior; feudal tenant.
2. a person holding some similar relation to a superior; a subject, subordinate, follower, or retainer.
3. a servant or slave.
So if this persona makes folks vassals - how does this happen? The befriending happens immediately and you WILL like this person. Apparently nice, seemingly intelligent and someone you want to align with, but you can’t come into their tent until they invite you. The Vassalizer wants to first make sure you are just a little dimmer than him/her before you are eligible for being drafted on their team.
This persona looks for the lesser endowed members of the organization who can help his/her agenda and might have some career risk on the next couple of status reports. This leader waits for the appropriate status report where they can “help” a lesser leader by shaping the status report, just a little - to relieve any potential negative fallout for a vassal candidate. Once this public save is done, the team building begins.
There is no such thing as a free lunch and should someone allow the creation of a revisionist version of a status report, they are officially a vassal in the serfdom of the Vassalizer. The functional leader may not know immediately, but once the next report is shaped, it is quickly understood they are beholden. Once the functional leadership is stacked, on to middle management. After all the world needs blacksmiths and cobblers for the whole feudal system to work.
With leadership quorum secured, a Vassalizer will begin recommending middle of the road middle managers in other groups, groups where they have serfs - pronounce them as wunderkinds. These newly indoctrinated serfs should be involved with nearly every project - regardless of need or skills. Often these serfs introduce limited assistance to the goal of the project, but they do champion the agenda of the leader who has anointed them as landed super tenants.
With multi-level moles on nearly every key project this person now starts building their serfdom in earnest. The other special thing about being a serf, is the Vassalizer sets up meetings before the meeting for this band of serfs, effectively serfdom status reporting, kinda like being a club. The club also has meetings after meetings to ensure alignment for the next reporting period and correct course on any items which could be negative for the serfdom. In fact, during the real meeting him/her may actually remain fairly silent and appear in agreement to decisions or direction, while having the indentured present alternative versions or paths sponsored by the leader of the cabal. Yes, I am mixing metaphors. I’m a little conflicted on this persona, as it may actually be good for some and helps mediocre people move on to better things, even if above their contribution and skills - so it’s hard not to fall inline with the opportunities presented by the Vassalizer.
Each status report represents another opportunity to show the organization how him/her could ultimately do things better, even if they are silent on report, since the objective status report speaks for itself. The real interesting thing is the serfs often don’t understand the impact they are having on the business, their own careers and the livelihoods of those not in the kingdom of servitude.
Over time this person may pick up a significant set of resources and other functions to ensure success for future projects, since the newly made vassals effectively confirm all the assertions by the leader when queried, since it is in fact in their best personal interest.
The only way to combat this control freak leader is to document early, often and wide. I hate micro-messaging on a project, but that is what you have to do. Confirm open items, missed dates, decisions and provide a more open version of project status. Artificial escalation through the of “cc” line on emails is recommended, in fact go a little larger than appropriate. Use up levels, but also cross functional up levels when writing you horribly generic and optimistic notes on where the project is, while weaving in the project reality as a subtext. Word choice is critical.
By using soft inferences and recommended solutions you can effectively limit the impact of this person on your life and the part of the organization you are responsible for, but not necessarily the organization.
Organizations take a little more time to realize the negative impact of this leader type, since they appear to have the confidence of fellow leaders, understand how to improve the NEXT project and are in general seemingly OK folk.
The warning signs that you have this type of leader are fairly hard at the business level to detect, since the are symptoms which mimic other non-benign things - people resigning, forceful recommendations to exit others and project misses.
People leave all the time and it can be easily rationalized that they are getting more money or some other intangible. Ultimately people have choice and opportunity, so this easily explained away and seldom do folks burn bridges, so they don’t disclosure all the reasons for leaving.
This person will strenuously influence the exiting of key dissenters out of the business and ultimately people are taken out all the time, so any person is as good as the next and hey - remember we like and trust the Vassalizer. I mean the Vassalizer is a hands on micromanager who seems to understand the nuances of every project.
The final symptom, slipped projects is just a fact of business. Projects slip all the time, so what the heck and the status reports clearly explained how someone else impacted the success and timeline.
Time is the only real foe of this leader, over time the patterns will emerge and become easily recognizable by those who have been cleverly enlisted in the cabal and now somehow report to the Vassalizer. New members of management quickly see the behavior and a global feedback theme begins to develop and is openly socialized at multiple levels of the organization. Churning out dissenters ultimately backfires, at least the Vassal could previously discount feedback from those who him/her helped leave the business. Project participants who have repeatedly been burnt by an inaccurate status report begin to see the pattern and may begin to be more demanding on how things are reported.
At the end of the day, patience is a virtue and ultimately who knows what happens with the Vassalizer- maybe you get whacked in the process, but at least you have your integrity. All you ever have is your integrity, so protect and honor it. Integrity is the central required attribute from which all other parts of leadership develop.
Technorati Tags: Bizaaro World, status report, team building, feudal system, middle managers, cabal, micromanager, leadership
Posted in Stuck | 1 Comment »
Friday, September 14th, 2007 |
I appreciate Robert Frost’s questioning of why fences make good neighbors in Mending Wall. It seems like a construct at opposition to getting along and a free existence. It is however, not so in more effective business, groups and organizations.
Many leaders and individual contributors are very focused on building, mending and extending their fences. This too seems oddly inconsistent with a friendly little workplace, but alas it is how it is. Perhaps fence mending is a corporate culture issue as much as a personnel concern.
So what type of fences exist in corporations? Organization, process and the ad-hoc fence - all of these magically remove accountability of ownership when someone throws something over the fence. The fence mender can be a leader or a individual contributor, as a mid-level leader this is an persona which if effectively dealt which can dramatically improve the execution and cross-functional execution.
The fence mender is consistently proving the value of fences for lack of ownership, since they are consistently defining the fence with forwarded emails and copious “cc-ing” of folks, hoping that someone will pick it up.
Real easy to improve interactions in this mode - just ignore it or follow up with the mender and clarify alternative next steps for that person to work. The other way to change this organizational behavior is to find revenue risk or to optimize the process (less boxes and arrows). This behavior existing in both Product and Process roles, which I’m not sure I agree with some of the conclusion/assertions, I do like the construct, since in Howard’s description most Fencer Menders are in product jobs, from what I have seen, but the most damage (revenue or risk can be done process-centric roles.
Since a fence mender can be a worker bee too, it’s just an opportunity for growth. If you manage the fence mender, it represents an opportunity for embracing accountability and personal ownership of an issue which has found it’s way to you.
As a rule, if a customer, team member or manager (actually these are all customers if you think about it) reaches out to you it is implied that they are looking for the Menders assistance - and assistance to closure. So in fact a fence mender is anyone in the organization who is willing to flip things “over the fence” and use the fence or the public throwing over the fence as an excuse for why something didn’t go well.
In the Vassal organization ( A Vassal leader is not one we have examined yet - but think BIG organization), there are even fences in the same organization and even within smaller groups/team. Typically these organizations are horribly overstaffed and each person has a very small zone of ownership, skill requirement and little to no accountability.
In principle, a Fence Mender organization is overly process-centric (way too many swim lanes and boxes), lacking creativity (I do what is in my box) and generally the domain of the mediocre (just get it out of my box). To that end:
‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
- R. Frost
It appears the only person who is given offence is the “customer” in need of something. So why is it that fences make good neighbors?
Technorati Tags: Robert Frost, Mending Wall, cross-functional, process-centric, swim lanes
Posted in Stuck | 1 Comment »
Saturday, September 8th, 2007 |
USA Today did a piece that says most people think middle management sucks - more access, more work, more meetings…. Yup and more opportunities, learning and influence on the organization. Work life balance indeed.
So I had a boss once that said “don’t whine - get a new job”, he was full of bumper sticker management - “Your lacking of planning doesn’t make it my emergency” - I mean a real witster, but not necessarily wrong. The salient part is that if you say yes to something and don’t like it - do something else.
A survey referenced in the story concludes essentially 1 out of 4 want to do something else (promotion, life stuff…) This “I need to do something else” phenomenon is not new Eric Saperston’s movie the Journey influenced lots of kids to do something else. I’m not convinced that this disdain with “what you are doing” is a middle management thing - more of a life thing.
Middle management is a place you can thrive and deliver career influence on many folks in the organization and if this isn’t your thing - then be a contributor. The article cites flexibility as an issue, but I think it is a little long on the drama.
Lack of flexibility
Managers such as Raj Nijjer, who oversees a staff of four software test engineers at a software company in Scottsdale, Ariz., are struggling with whether to remain in their jobs. The 29-year-old and his wife recently had a son, and Nijjer says that as a manager, he can’t avail himself of the same flexibility as his staffers. On a recent day off with his baby, a crisis at work erupted, and he had to go in and conduct meetings with his team.
Welcome to the blackberry lifestyle! The real challenge is integrating WORK into life, not LIFE into work. Use your media access to your benefit. Early morning email, late night email and industry web browsing - helps you better understand the organization, industry and confines the impact to a single sitting rather than on going dribbles and drabs which are interjected into your day.
Remember - anything can be done on a bluetooth and a cellular wireless card for your laptop. Its worth it for you to use your own money, if you can’t get from your employer. The right tools for the right life. A crisis can be VERY effectively managed remotely from a bluetooth device. Long lunches, early days and late arrivals are a privilege of the middle management - sorta.
I’m not saying be a slacker, but if you do 50 hours a week, not many people care where it is done - just that as long as it gets done and done well, that’s the key. (I am making the assumption your good at ALL of your time management and good at your job.)
If you actually manage, lead and are organized most jobs in middle management shouldn’t kill your life.
•More work. Middle-management jobs have become more demanding. Technology means middle managers have to do more multitasking and are expected to be accessible to their staffs, a Herculean challenge in the age of globalization. Employees may be spread across the globe, and a manager may have to get up at 3 a.m. to take a call from an employee in another country.
•Generational differences. Baby boomers, born roughly between 1944 and 1964, were reared with the ideal of company loyalty and the notion of a hierarchical career path that included paying dues and gradually ascending the corporate ladder. Middle management was considered a plum assignment that also brought job security.
Yes the world is different and flatter. A 3 am conference call gets you not coming in until noon or a FULL telecommute day. A conference call at 7PM get you home at 3:30. Balance folks.
The other item is due to the emotional investment more middle managers than not, don’t take all their paid time off which doesn’t help for the “I like my job” quotient. Staying at home and doing only 3 hours of work on a PTO day is better than burning it or banking it for the “future”.
Another trick - I’m a fairly wired worker so I go places where it’s plausible that you have no “bars” on the phone - mountains, 3rd world countries…. Integrate work into life and enjoy the middle management opportunity.
Technorati Tags: middle management, Work life balance, Eric Saperston, the Journey, blackberry lifestyle, Integrate work
Posted in Leadership, Stuck | No Comments »
Wednesday, September 5th, 2007 |
A good amount of people in most workplaces work a real day’s work, but there are few/a small handful that believe being a pass-thru entity who provides verbose email updates qualify as work. The visualist is mainly focused on visibility and will eagerly sign up for any action. That’s when the real fun starts.
FAST FORWARD: Meeting end +30 minutes: The visualist stops by the office and meanders his/her way to a discussion on “who might know this” or “who might know that” or “who could”. After the information is divulged in a way that he or she can comprehend - they disappear - so they’re kinda magician’s as well.
Action item due time -30 minutes: Visualist stops by and plays back their assessments of the status, asks for input and thoughts around next steps. You give it up and - WHOOSH - gone like a phantom.
Status Meeting -12 minutes: Some how in the time you chatted a 3 page missive is sent which is effectively only 3 bullets of update, 2 bullets of next steps and a bunch of “here’s how tough it was” and “thanks to xxxx”. Ah the visualist value add - bloated communication, kudos and poor word choice.
Meeting: He or she boastfully brings in their update printed and reads it, like they aren’t sure they know it outside of the script.
So the fun part with this type of self-proclaimed leader starts when you go for the details. Go into the details, he or she will need to publicly engage the person who did the work or state they need to follow up with the work doer for additional validation and clarity, after fumbling towards an answer.
The other slightly mean thing to do is to send them off to the wrong people, this only works with short deadlines. Or goof with them on next steps… So while the stuck series speaks to leadership and middle management influence, the visualist is typically a climber who believes they are a leader. I mean they typically are in the office early.
These people typically think note taking and action management with the leadership is leadership. Some time’s note taking is just note taking. Typically these peoples ego’s will provide a quick burn from which only a phoenix will rise.
Posted in Stuck | No Comments »
Wednesday, August 29th, 2007 |
It takes all kinds of leadership styles and ameoba is generally a kind, well intention and fairly good manager with limited creativity. To just baseline on the core object which is the metaphor for this leader:
a•moe•ba also a•me•ba n. Any of various one-celled aquatic or parasitic protozoans of the genus Amoeba or related genera, having no definite form and consisting of a mass of protoplasm containing one or more nuclei surrounded by a flexible outer membrane. It moves by means of pseudopods.
So it also is important to understand pseudopods:
pseu•do•pod (sōō’də-pŏd’) n. A temporary projection of the cytoplasm of certain cells, such as phagocytes, or of certain unicellular organisms, especially amoebas, that serves in locomotion and phagocytosis.
So the metaphor is a simplistic non-committal group thinker who just kinda hovers as a key activity. When experiencing an ameba event, typically it involve a fairly large group of folks from extended groups, your not sure why he/she is there, but you can’t miss ‘em because they took a seat at the middle of the table.
The other characteristic which is a little odd, this person schedule no meetings, in fact you probably can’t even remember the last meeting or email you received of from this person outside of the dog pile congratulations email streams which happen over a minor accomplishment.
So we have an effective non-entity. This person will wildly support any decision which has a clear majority and remain silent with anything below 70/30. (fair weather golfer) Once the momentum is clear in a discussion, this person will emphatically agree! The amoeba will also be the last person to comment in a discussion. This person actually allows other functional to drive innovation into their own group which provides an exclamation to their passive reality. Bad Leaders Hover!
So how do you deal with this archetype? Just remember the amoeba is a survivor, in fact that’s all they ever do (embrace the metaphor). Another key point to remember is when dealing with an amoeba is no one likes the mean kid and the bar for mean with this leader is low.
So if you can’t go head to head with this simplistic leader, use a mirror. Embrace the ameba’s view of the world and partner to develop an understanding of the processes and key metrics to deliver increased visibility through your own hovering in their group. Come up with improvement ideas and general observations to help improve the effectiveness of the group. The cool thing is if they invite you in – then you can do anything, so add some value!
Technorati Tags: Amoeba, phagocytosis
Posted in Leadership, Stuck | No Comments »
Wednesday, August 15th, 2007 |
The Collaborator sorta sounds like a super hero - not so much, but I can see the spandex garb in my head, so I’ll run with it.
The collaborator is an interesting leadership persona - on the surface it is a label, mode of operation and general concept which is good - right up until something requires accountability. So let me state - a product, deliverable or just plain anything is just plain better with help. In fact a group can always produce a better product, but there always lingers the group think risk, which ignored, not understood or believed to be a myth by the collaborator. Think Abilene paradox! - agreement is a bear.
Usually the better product is produced through iterations and review, rather than sharing the creative process, model development or production activity. Everyone has a role and value they bring to the table, but the leadership super hero - The Collaborator - believes ALL phases of delivery are best done with 12 people (4 on a dial in number, 6 people in the room and 2 following up after the fact via email). While with a geologist, I just put together some diagnosis concepts, the collaborator requires a little more work to flesh out and help folks understand how to thrive in a collaboration lifestyle - err “workstyle”.
So in a collaborative reality the delivery time lines are COMPLETELY manageable and by manageable - I mean lot’s of headroom, but due to the number of meetings - the whole thing is a little over complicated from a production process perspective. The meetings become a great opportunity to get input - in fact this leader prefers volume of input to validity of input. So in the model - the more commentary the better, I find myself becoming a play-by-play analyst of my daily work life (update emails, update meetings, update blog posts..) and acknowledging each item of input through a series of “let me know sure I fully understand - you believe <insert random input provided by a direct report of the collaborator>” or rapid response email requesting more quality insights which can help delay the next rev of uninspiring delivery.
This is the best leadership model to survive/hide in, all you need is input and participation in the process, since the team will develop all parts of the deliverable. In fact, it is almost preferred to start with a framework, rather than a draft of something - since no single person is accountable in this model. The model by design makes EVERY work product a success and while I never participated/witnessed, I suspect there are group hugs if I was able to attend all of the typical 3 hour review meeting.
Facts, stats and logic are your magic bullet under this leader persona - in fact if you can present the facts in the way that the leader believes it was a product of the team, you WIN and get to participate in future love fests which produce watered down messaging, minimalist risk taking and in general a place to call your own on the Phrog farm.
Jerry Harvey on Phrogs:
All organizations have two essential purposes. One is to produce widgets, glops, and fillips. The other is to turn people into phrogs. In many organizations, the latter purpose takes precedence over the former. For example, in many organizations, it is more important to follow the chain of command than to behave sensibly.
Phrog is spelled with a ph because phrogs don’t like to be known as frogs, and they try to hide their phroginess from themselves and others by transparent means… For one who has been a person, it’s a great come down to be a phrog.
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Posted in Leadership, Stuck | 4 Comments »
