Brian O'Driscoll and Employee Engagement

" You come to work to learn don't you!"

These are the words of a professional rugby player called Brian O'Driscoll in an interview this year.

If you don't recognise the name, some of his many achievements include being voted European Player of the Decade in 2010 and he is the all time top try scorer in the 5/6 Nations Championship ( it started in 1883). He also, last weekend, led Ireland to a shock victory over Australia.

Maybe I was surprised to hear a professional sports person talk about learning being so important to their sense of job satisfaction and engagement.

Maybe I was surprised to hear it from one of the greats of rugby as he comes to the end of an amazing career.

But I was most surprised about how simple a concept it is of enjoying your job - that you get up each morning in order to learn something.

It got me asking myself and others;

Are you learning from your job?

Are you maximising the learning opportunities?

As a manager are you ensuring your direct reports can and do learn?

Not More Delegation - its about More Effective Delegation

“I need to delegate more!” is a statement I hear a lot from my coaching clients. Its often seen as the solution to trying to do too much with too little time.

But the issue is not about more delegation but more effective delegation. Some situations will need you less involved than you are currently. And some situations will need you more involved than you are currently

Marshall Goldsmith has the following suggestions if you want to become a more effective delegator:


1) Have each direct report list her or his key areas of responsibility. Schedule one-on-one sessions with each person. Review each area of responsibility and ask, "Are there cases where you believe that I get too involved and can let go more? Are there cases when I need to get more involved and give you some more help?" When leaders go through this exercise, they almost always find that in some cases, more delegation is wanted, and in others it is not. In fact, more help is needed.

2) Ask each direct report, "Do you ever see me working on tasks that someone at my level doesn't need to do? Are there areas where I can help other people grow and develop, and give myself more time to focus on strategy and long-term planning?" Almost invariably, direct reports will come up with great suggestions. For example, for several of my C-level clients, team management has emerged as an area where letting go can both free up executive time and help develop direct reports. Too many top executives feel a need to schedule team meetings and then act as traffic cop during the meeting to ensure that the time schedules are met and that agendas are completed. This meeting management task can usually be delegated on a rotating basis to direct reports. This helps direct reports understand the agendas of the peer team members and allows them to develop their skills in building collaboration and reaching consensus.


Ask yourself these tough questions. Then ask the people who are working with you. The answers may save your time and increase your team's effectiveness.

The Five Dysfunctions of a Cabinet

Week one into the life of the new Irish Government and they are facing into intensive pressure from France and Germany on our beloved Corporation tax rate, the increased likelihood that the Banking stress tests will highlight the need for many more billions of euro and hence a renegotiated IMF bail-out and continuing fears about the house repossession monster.

So much to deal with and respond to. Yet the new Cabinet is a brand new team and so needs to also stay focused on ensuring it has in place the key ingredients that make any team a success or a failure. After all, they are the most important team in the country!

So what should Enda Kenny and co do about ensuring they work well as a cohesive successful team?

Patrick Lencioni highlighted 5 dysfunctions of a team that I believe are even more crucial based on a coalition of two political parties:

1. Absence of Trust – the key building block for successful teams is trust. Failure is guaranteed if ministers are not genuinely open with each other about their mistakes and weaknesses. Sound familiar – I doubt our previous Cabinet of FF and the Greens scored too high on trust as a team.

2. Fear of Conflict – no trust in a team leads to guarded comments, veiled discussions and whispers outside of meetings. Successful teams have lively meetings, get ideas from all the members and keep it real. Cabinet meetings need to hear what Ministers are really thinking and not just what is the right thing to say.

3. Lack of Commitment – no healthy conflict means no full commitment. Instead team members feign agreement and say one thing and do another. A clear set of common objectives can keep this Cabinet focused. Its about defining what winning is

4. Avoidance of Accountability – no commitment means no accountability and actions promised never happen and mediocrity and passing the buck prevails. This starts with the leader and needs to stay with each team member

5. Inattention to Results – the four previous dysfunctions result in a team where individual needs and glory come before the collective goals of the team and indeed the country.

So while its great to hit the ground running, I hope the First 100 Days plan includes time for this new team to start at the key first step and build trust with each other. Time to connect; learn about each other in terms of experience and strengths; and creating personal relationships with fellow team members.

The huge challenges of any government will always be there – that makes it even crucial that the Cabinet learns how to start being a team as quickly as possible.

Confusion, fear mongering, death-by-delay, or ridicule and character assassination

Confusion, fear mongering, death-by-delay, or ridicule and character assassination.
Another day, another meeting and another idea shoot down. John Kotter has just written a book called “Buy-In” and includes the list below of the 24 most common forms of attack. The responses to each attack which will not silence valid criticism, but will help stop verbal bullets from killing good ideas.

Let me know your thoughts on the list or any additions you have to it.

Colm

#1 "We've been successful, why change?!"
Attack:
We've never done this in the past and things have always worked out OK.
Response:
True. But surely we have all seen that those who fail to adapt eventually become extinct.

#2 "The only problem is not enough money."
Attack:
Money is the issue, not _____ (computers, product safety, choice of choir songs, etc).
Response:
Extra money is rarely what builds truly great ventures or organizations.

#3 "You exaggerate the problem."
Attack:
You are exaggerating. This is a small issue for us if it is an issue at all.
Response:
To the good people who suffer because of this problem, it certainly doesn't look small.

#4 "You're saying we've failed??!!"
Attack:
If this is a problem, then what you are telling us is that we have been doing a lousy job. That's insulting!
Response:
No, we're suggesting that you are doing a remarkably good job without the needed tools (systems, methods, laws, etc) which, in our proposal, you will have.

#5 "What's the hidden agenda?"
Attack:
It's clear you have a hidden agenda and we would prefer that you take it elsewhere.
Response:
Not fair! Just look at the track record of the good folks behind this proposal! (And why would you even suggest such a thing?)

#6 "What about this, and that, and that (etc.)?"
Attack:
Your proposal leaves too many questions unanswered. What about this and that, and this and that, and...
Response:
All good ideas, if they are new, raise dozens of questions that cannot be answered with certainty.

#7 "No good! It doesn't go far enough" (or, "It goes too far")
Attack:
Your proposal doesn't go nearly far enough.
Response:
Maybe, but our idea will get us started moving in the right direction, and do so without further delay.

#8 "You have a chicken and egg problem."
Attack:
You can't do A without doing B, yet you can't do B without doing A. So the plan won't work.
Response:
Well actually, you can do a little bit of A which allows a little bit of B which allows more A which allows more of B, and so on.

#9 "Sounds like 'killing puppies' to me!"
Attack:
Your plan reminds me of a thing disgusting and terrible (insert totalitarianism, organized crime, insanity, or dry rot...)
Response:
Look, you know it isn't like that. A realistic comparison might be...

#10 "You're abandoning our values."
Attack:
You are abandoning our traditional values.
Response:
This plan is essential to uphold our traditional values.

#11 "It's too simplistic to work."
Attack:
Surely you don't think a few simple tricks will solve everything?
Response:
No – it's the combination of your good work and some new things that, together, can make a great advance.

#12 "No one else does this!"
Attack:
If this is such a great idea, why hasn't it been done already?
Response:
There really is a first time for everything and we do have a unique opportunity.

#13 "You can't have it both ways!"
Attack:
Your plan says X and Y, but they are incompatible. You can't have both!
Response:
Actually, we didn't say X or Y—although, I grant you, it may have sounded that way. We said A and B, which are not incompatible.

#14 "Aha! You can't deny this!"
Attack:
I'm sorry – you mean well, but look at this problem you've clearly missed! You can't deny the significance of this issue!
Response:
No one can deny the significance of the issue you have raised, and, yes, we haven't explored it. But every potential problem we have found so far has been readily solved. So in light of what has happened again and again and again, I am today confident that this new issue can also be handled, just like all the rest.

#15 "To generate all these questions and concerns, the idea has to be flawed."
Attack:
Look at how many different concerns there are! This can't be good!
Response:
Actually, many the questions mean we are engaged, and an engaged group both makes better decisions and implements them more successfully.

#16 "Tried it before – didn't work."
Attack:
We tried that before and it didn't work.
Response:
That was then. Conditions inevitably change [and what we propose probably isn't exactly what was tried before]

#17 "It's too difficult to understand."
Attack:
Too many of our people will never understand the idea and, inevitably, will not help us make it happen.
Response:
Not a problem. We will make the required effort to convince them. It's worth the effort to do so.

#18 "This is not the right time."
Attack:
Good idea, but it's the wrong time. We need to wait until this other thing is finished (or this other thing is started, or the situation changes in a certain special way).
Response:
The best time is almost always when you have people excited and committed to make something happen. And that's now.

#19 "It's too much work."
Attack:
This seems too hard! I'm not sure we are up for it.
Response:
Hard can be good. A genuinely good new idea, facing time consuming obstacles, can both raise our energy level and motivate us to eliminate wasted time.

#20 "Won't work here, we're different!"
Attack:
It won't work here because we are so different.
Response:
Yes it's true, we're different, but we are also very much the same.

#21 "It puts us on a slippery slope."
Attack:
You're on a slippery slope leading to a cliff. This small move today will lead to disaster tomorrow.
Response:
Good groups of people—all the time-- use common sense as a guard rail to keep them from sliding into disaster.

#22 "We can't afford this."
Attack:
The plan may be fine but we cannot do it without new sources of money.
Response:
Actually, most important changes are achieved without new sources of money.

#23 "You'll never convince enough people."
Attack:
It will be impossible to get unanimous agreement with this plan.
Response:
You are absolutely right. That's almost never possible, and that's OK.

#24 "We're not equipped to do this."
Attack:
We don't really have the skills or credentials to pull this off!
Response:
We have much of what we need and we can and will get the rest.

SiliconRepublic interview: Why a CIO’s role must be about selling the value of IT to senior management.

Below is a lin to a recent interview I did with SiliconRepublic.com on why a CIO’s role must be about selling the value of IT to senior management.


http://www.siliconrepublic.com/strategy/item/19626-interview-from-cio-to-sale/

Emotional Intelligence in Sport? Part 2

In the last few weeks I have been hearing or reading about a change in top class sports coaching. A change that reflects a much greater degree of emotional intelligence in the world of male macho sports.

I previously shared the example of Pat Gilroy from the parochial world of Gaelic football (see my previous blog).

Example number 2 is from another tough physical sport and this person has the most pressurised job in that particular sport.

Here are some of his quotes from a recent interview with the Irish Times;

“You couldn’t coach the way you did in the 1990s now. They (the players) would not put up with it."

"Really I am the vision man, the strategic person."

"When I coached…..10-15 years ago I was much more authoritarian, but that is how they (the players) grew up, that’s how they were taught at school."

"Today it’s much more consensus management, with people helping each other. So if you are too dictatorial, you just wouldn’t last.”

The speaker is Graham Henry, the coach of the New Zealand (All Black’s) Rugby team.

If you think you have pressure and tough targets, Henry carries not the hopes of a nation but the expectation that New Zealand will win the next Rugby World Cup.

How many of your leaders would you describe as “the vision man”? How many drive consensus and engagement as opposed to dictating everything?

Sport, which can be such a macho, results driven environment involving all ranges of intelligence, is showing the way on leadership – as a business leader are you paying attention?

Emotional Intelligence in Sport? What Business Leaders Can Learn – Part 1

Have always been weary of referencing sport too much in my work with clients as it can be a turn off for those not interested and also because sport is often to simplistic a metaphor for business (if only business had such defined parameters of time, skill, achievement and success).

However I am going to break my own rule because recently I had the experience of listening to a sports coach that have made me realized that sport could be leading the way in Emotionally Intelligent leadership.

Let us just define Emotional Intelligence briefly with one of my favorite quotes which says Emotional Intelligence is “everything you do that isn’t a result of how smart you are” (Martyn Newman).

Pat Gilroy manages the Dublin Gaelic Football team. Gaelic football is indigenous to Ireland (think soccer/rugby/barroom fighting) and is a tough male macho sport – the traditional culture has been of authoritative, telling, “do as I say” , boot and bite leadership.

As the capital, the Dublin team gets 80,000 people cheering them on at games while 3.5 million from the rest of the country are wishing them continued failure. Pat’s job is therefore very high profile, especially since Dublin has underachieved for the last 10 years.

Pat took on the role of turning Dublin around last year and here are some of the things he mentioned when talking to myself and thirty other leaders last month:

- His focus is on ENGAGEMENT (of a panel of 30 top class players) and he has gotten there with his players through VISION, DISCIPLINE and INVOLVEMENT.

- He defines leadership as “creating the CULTURE for THE TEAM to be successful”

- He has focused on doing more “TEAM ASKS” than “TEAM TALKS”

- When results have not gone well he has owned up to his OWN MISTAKES as a way to ensure everyone gets DIRECT FEEDBACK.

No macho stuff, no “I’m the expert”. Pat is leading by connecting to his team and engaging them. He is building a winning culture as opposed to fixating on a winning the cup – he see’s that the success comes after the culture.

So can you take even one of the bullet points above and start doing more of it with your team?

None of them require you to have a big IQ – they all require you though to park your own ego and to ENGAGE with your team as adults who want to be involved, who have good ideas and who can be accountable and responsibility for their own actions.

By the way, Pat’s team got to the semi-final of the championship this summer and missed out on the final by a single score.