Marshall Goldsmith on Leadership Effectiveness: Feedforward Instead of Feedback

Providing feedback has long been considered to be an essential skill for leaders. As they strive to achieve the goals of the organization, employees need to know how they are doing. They need to know if their performance is in line with what their leaders expect. They need to learn what they have done well and what they need to change. Traditionally, this information has been communicated in the form of “downward feedback” from leaders to their employees. Just as employees need feedback from leaders, leaders can benefit from feedback from their employees. Employees can provide useful input on the effectiveness of procedures and processes and as well as input to managers on their leadership effectiveness. This “upward feedback” has become increasingly common with the advent of 360 degree multi-rater assessments.

But there is a fundamental problem with all types of feedback: it focuses on the past, on what has already occurred—not on the infinite variety of opportunities that can happen in the future. As such, feedback can be limited and static, as opposed to expansive and dynamic.

Over the past several years, I have observed more than thirty thousand leaders as they participated in a fascinating experiential exercise. In the exercise, participants are each asked to play two roles. In one role, they are asked provide feedforward —that is, to give someone else suggestions for the future and help as much as they can. In the second role, they are asked to accept feedforward—that is, to listen to the suggestions for the future and learn as much as they can. The exercise typically lasts for 10-15 minutes, and the average participant has 6-7 dialogue sessions. In the exercise participants are asked to:

• Pick one behavior that they would like to change. Change in this behavior should make a significant, positive difference in their lives.

• Describe this behavior to randomly selected fellow participants. This is done in one-on-one dialogues. It can be done quite simply, such as, “I want to be a better listener.”

• Ask for feedforward—for two suggestions for the future that might help them achieve a positive change in their selected behavior. If participants have worked together in the past, they are not allowed to give ANY feedback about the past. They are only allowed to give ideas for the future.

• Listen attentively to the suggestions and take notes. Participants are not allowed to comment on the suggestions in any way. They are not allowed to critique the suggestions or even to make positive judgmental statements, such as, “That’s a good idea.”

• Thank the other participants for their suggestions.

• Ask the other persons what they would like to change.

• Provide feedforward - two suggestions aimed at helping the other person change.

• Say, “You are welcome.” when thanked for the suggestions. The entire process of both giving and receiving feedforward usually takes about two minutes.

• Find another participant and keep repeating the process until the exercise is stopped.

When the exercise is finished, I ask participants to provide one word that best describes their reaction to this experience. I ask them to complete the sentence, “This exercise was …”. The words provided are almost always extremely positive, such as “great”, “energizing”, “useful”, or “helpful.” One of the most commonly-mentioned words is “fun!”

What is the last word that comes to mind when we consider any feedback activity? Fun!

Eleven Reasons to Try FeedForward

Participants are then asked why this exercise is seen as fun and helpful as opposed to painful, embarrassing, or uncomfortable. Their answers provide a great explanation of why feedforward can often be more useful than feedback as a developmental tool.

1. We can change the future. We can’t change the past. Feedforward helps people envision and focus on a positive future, not a failed past. Athletes are often trained using feedforward. Racecar drivers are taught to, “Look at the road ahead, not at the wall.” Basketball players are taught to envision the ball going in the hoop and to imagine the perfect shot. By giving people ideas on how they can be even more successful (as opposed to visualizing a failed past), we can increase their chances of achieving this success in the future.

2. It can be more productive to help people learn to be “right,” than prove they were “wrong.” Negative feedback often becomes an exercise in “let me prove you were wrong.” This tends to produce defensiveness on the part of the receiver and discomfort on the part of the sender. Even constructively delivered feedback is often seen as negative as it necessarily involves a discussion of mistakes, shortfalls, and problems. Feedforward, on the other hand, is almost always seen as positive because it focuses on solutions – not problems.

3. Feedforward is especially suited to successful people. Successful people like getting ideas that are aimed at helping them achieve their goals. They tend to resist negative judgment. We all tend to accept feedback that is consistent with the way we see ourselves. We also tend to reject or deny feedback that is inconsistent with the way we see ourselves. Successful people tend to have a very positive self-image. I have observed many successful executives respond to (and even enjoy) feedforward. I am not sure that these same people would have had such a positive reaction to feedback.

4. Feedforward can come from anyone who knows about the task. It does not require personal experience with the individual. One very common positive reaction to the previously described exercise is that participants are amazed by how much they can learn from people that they don’t know! For example, if you want to be a better listener, almost any fellow leader can give you ideas on how you can improve. They don’t have to know you. Feedback requires knowing about the person. Feedforward just requires having good ideas for achieving the task.

5. People do not take feedforward as personally as feedback. In theory, constructive feedback is supposed to “focus on the performance, not the person”. In practice, almost all feedback is taken personally (no matter how it is delivered). Successful people’s sense of identity is highly connected with their work. The more successful people are, the more this tends to be true. It is hard to give a dedicated professional feedback that is not taken personally. Feedforward cannot involve a personal critique, since it is discussing something that has not yet happened! Positive suggestions tend to be seen as objective advice – personal critiques are often viewed as personal attacks.

6. Feedback can reinforce personal stereotyping and negative self-fulfilling prophecies. Feedforward can reinforce the possibility of change. Feedback can reinforce the feeling of failure. How many of us have been “helped” by a spouse, significant other, or friend, who seems to have a near-photographic memory of our previous “sins” that they share with us in order to point out the history of our shortcomings. Negative feedback can be used to reinforce the message, “this is just the way you are”. Feedforward is based on the assumption that the receiver of suggestions can make positive changes in the future.

7. Face it! Most of us hate getting negative feedback, and we don’t like to give it. I have reviewed summary 360 degree feedback reports for over 50 companies. The items, “provides developmental feedback in a timely manner” and “encourages and accepts constructive criticism” both always score near the bottom on co-worker satisfaction with leaders. Traditional training does not seem to make a great deal of difference. If leaders got better at providing feedback every time the performance appraisal forms were “improved”, most should be perfect by now! Leaders are not very good at giving or receiving negative feedback. It is unlikely that this will change in the near future.

8. Feedforward can cover almost all of the same “material” as feedback. Imagine that you have just made a terrible presentation in front of the executive committee. Your manager is in the room. Rather than make you “relive” this humiliating experience, your manager might help you prepare for future presentations by giving you suggestions for the future. These suggestions can be very specific and still delivered in a positive way. In this way your manager can “cover the same points” without feeling embarrassed and without making you feel even more humiliated.

9. Feedforward tends to be much faster and more efficient than feedback. An excellent technique for giving ideas to successful people is to say, “Here are four ideas for the future. Please accept these in the positive spirit that they are given. If you can only use two of the ideas, you are still two ahead. Just ignore what doesn’t make sense for you.” With this approach almost no time gets wasted on judging the quality of the ideas or “proving that the ideas are wrong”. This “debate” time is usually negative; it can take up a lot of time, and it is often not very productive. By eliminating judgment of the ideas, the process becomes much more positive for the sender, as well as the receiver. Successful people tend to have a high need for self-determination and will tend to accept ideas that they “buy” while rejecting ideas that feel “forced” upon them.

10. Feedforward can be a useful tool to apply with managers, peers, and team members. Rightly or wrongly, feedback is associated with judgment. This can lead to very negative – or even career-limiting – unintended consequences when applied to managers or peers. Feedforward does not imply superiority of judgment. It is more focused on being a helpful “fellow traveler” than an “expert”. As such it can be easier to hear from a person who is not in a position of power or authority. An excellent team building exercise is to have each team member ask, “How can I better help our team in the future?” and listen to feedforward from fellow team members (in one-on-one dialogues.)

11. People tend to listen more attentively to feedforward than feedback. One participant is the feedforward exercise noted, “I think that I listened more effectively in this exercise than I ever do at work!” When asked why, he responded, “Normally, when others are speaking, I am so busy composing a reply that will make sure that I sound smart – that I am not fully listening to what the other person is saying I am just composing my response. In feedforward the only reply that I am allowed to make is ‘thank you’. Since I don’t have to worry about composing a clever reply – I can focus all of my energy on listening to the other person!”

In summary, the intent of this article is not to imply that leaders should never give feedback or that performance appraisals should be abandoned. The intent is to show how feedforward can often be preferable to feedback in day-to-day interactions. Aside from its effectiveness and efficiency, feedforward can make life a lot more enjoyable. When managers are asked, “How did you feel the last time you received feedback?” their most common responses are very negative. When managers are asked how they felt after receiving feedforward, they reply that feedforward was not only useful, it was also fun!

Quality communication—between and among people at all levels and every department and division—is the glue that holds organizations together. By using feedforward—and by encouraging others to use it—leaders can dramatically improve the quality of communication in their organizations, ensuring that the right message is conveyed, and that those who receive it are receptive to its content. The result is a much more dynamic, much more open organization—one whose employees focus on the promise of the future rather than dwelling on the mistakes of the past.

 

Dr. Marshall Goldsmith was recently named winner of the Thinkers50 Leadership Award (sponsored by Harvard Business Review) as the world's most influential leadership thinker. Along with being recognized as the #1 leadership thinker, Marshall was listed as the #7 greatest business thinker in the world. What Got You Here Won’t Get You There was the #2 bestseller on the INC Magazine / CEO Read list of business bestsellers for 2011. This is the fifth year in a row that What Got You Here Won’t Get You There was in the top ten. MOJO was listed at #19. This is the second year in a row that it has been in the top twenty. via marshallgoldsmithlibrary.com

 

Heal Your Life: Your Authentic Sexual Self

Let’s pretend you’ve just bought the car of your dreams. It’s sleek and shiny and exactly the right color. The genuine leather seats and polished dashboard exude the ultimate new-car fragrance. You pull out of the dealer’s lot and happily drive away.

When you get home, you open the glove compartment, eager to find the owner’s manual and learn all about your precious new vehicle. To your dismay, the manual does not say “Mercedes SLK300.” It says, “Generic Automobile Manual.” It points out that you have tires, doors, windows, and mirrors. It’s filled with crazy-making advice such as, “If the flashing symbol on the dashboard looks something like this, it could either mean that you are out of gas, or that your tires need inflating, or that your engine is about to seize.”

You’d be pretty upset, right? You’d spend the next weeks and months tentatively trying to get to know your car by trial and error. Just when you think you’d gotten it all figured out, some new mysterious flashing light would throw you into a panic as you tried to evaluate what it meant and if it was serious. If you had owned several different cars of various makes before this one, you would have a better idea of how cars work and a better idea of what the warning signals might mean. If this were your first car, you’d most likely be mystified and maybe even terrified.

This is pretty much how all of us navigate through sex and relationships. Very few of us are trained mechanics. Almost all of us have learned by trial and error. The information available to us, especially when we are just starting out, is dangerously one-size-fits-all.

How do you begin to understand how you’re built as an erotic, ecstatic being and how you run? How do you operate? What reference manuals and tools will you need for optimum care? And how can you effectively communicate this information to others so that they can love and enjoy you more easily and more effectively?

Get a blank notebook. If you like, you can title it: My Ecstatic Sex and Relationship Operating Manual: Instructions, Troubleshooting Tips, and Advice on Lifetime Maintenance. Give your notebook a title that invites you to write in it and read it. In my new book Ecstasy Is Necessary, I include exercises to help you begin to discover who you authentically are as a sexual being and what you most want and need from your relationships right now.

And right now is the key phrase. We are all in a lifelong process of sexual evolution. It begins the day we are born and lasts until the day we die. As in any evolution, we shift and change constantly. Sometimes your progress may seem

 

low or even non-existent. At other times changes will happen overnight. At 40 years old we may have desires for things we never even knew existed when we were 16. At 50 we may wonder if we will ever feel sexual again. At 60 we may be more sexually active than we were in our 20s. The process is all very personal and individual.

This is where your sex- and relationship-operating guide comes in. As you create your operating guide, your authentic sexual self will reveal itself to you. What do I mean by your authentic sexual self? I mean the you that has been shaped and motivated by your values, your needs, and your desires. When you know who you are and what you value, need, and desire, it’s a snap to select the most exquisite choices from the menu of infinite erotic possibilities. You’ll save yourself time, anxiety, and heartache and you’ll experience a great deal more joy, pleasure, love, and ecstasy.

Before you can start to imagine, appreciate and choose from your totality of erotic possibilities, you’ll need to know three things about yourself:

• What do I value?
• What do I need?
• What do I desire?

The answers to these three questions will set you free.

Excerpted from Ecstasy Is Necessary by Barbara Carrellas. Copyright © 2012 (Hay House).

Barbara Carrellas is an author, sex/life coach, sex educator, university lecturer, workshop facilitator, motivational speaker and theater artist. via healyourlife.com

Jim Woods is an author, life and business coach speaker, innovation consultant, motivational speaker, and university professor. For speaking engagements or a free coaching session you may reach Jim at 719-266-6703 or Email. 

 

Lessons on Leadership - Organizational Culture, Penn State, and Avoidance

It will be many years before the implications of the child sexual abuse perpetrated by Jerry Sandusky will be fully understood. As details continue to emerge in the present we find a horrifying pattern of abuse over many years and an organizational culture that enabled individuals at multiple levels of leadership to look the other way. The echoes of disbelief from similar scandals in the church ring in our ears. We have learned how deluded and deceptive pedophiles can be in securing relationships of trust to exploit children, rationalizing abhorrent behavior as something other than what it is – criminal assault.

Added to our immense grief for the physical and psychological harm done to innocent lives, is the realization that when leaders are made aware of a possible act of abuse, the instinct is to duck and cover. Is this the result of an individual character flaw? Is there some lack of professional training or development? Did they not understand the expectations and responsibilities they carry in positions of authority?

The report released Thursday from the Special Investigative Counsel, Louis J. Freeh, former director of the FBI, details the many failures of leadership involved at Penn State. One reference in the executive summary, however, makes a much broader sweeping statement about the cultural context of the university and the community:

“A culture of reverence for the football program that is ingrained at all levels of the campus community.”

It seems this statement could be adapted to many settings in which the decision to act is mitigated by a fear of bad publicity. The generic version would read, “A culture of reverence for the [fill in the blank] that is ingrained at all levels of the [organization].” Suddenly the pain of the Penn State community feels closer as we all know circumstances in which our regard for individuals or institutions can cause us to compromise on standards that cross moral, legal or ethical boundaries.

As I followed the news coverage of the events surrounding the emergence of the scandal through the Sandusky trial, I was struck by two events that appeared out-of-place. First, when the Penn State board of trustees made the decision to terminate Coach Joe Paterno (along with President Graham Spanier), the crowds protesting the end of Paterno’s career at Penn State seemed odd. The investigation was ongoing. The facts had not surfaced publicly. Yet the exuberant devotion to a sports idol and elevation of the football program to cult status revealed a distorted culture. Children had been sexually abused. We had many more questions than answers. Yet the crowds celebrated the hero-status of someone who knew about it and didn’t stop it. The situation did not call for a celebration; it called for reflection.

Second, the conclusion of the trial delivered a stack of guilty verdicts for Jerry Sandusky. Here again, crowds gathered as if it was a pep rally following the game. The fans cheered as the lawyers emerged from the courthouse to offer “post-game” remarks much like the coach and the MVP of the championship team. Media interviews followed on strategy and tactics. The coach for the losing team signaled he would be back with an appeal. One of the commentators on the news broadcast I was watching was stunned by what he saw. As a trial lawyer himself, he had seen many post trial settings, but nothing like this. The situation did not call for celebration; it called for reflection.

It’s inexcusable, but understandable that a distorted cultural context can give pause to leaders charged to act in ways that may be misunderstood or unpopular. We have much to learn from this tragedy. We have to find ways of developing healthy organizational cultures that will not bend to fears of bad publicity, but remain steadfast in ensuring well-being, providing justice and acting with integrity.

Mark Putnam is president of Central College in Pella, Iowa. He authors a blog, Mark: my words, at http://blogs.central.edu/president/ and can be reached at president@central.edu. via hard-ball-innovation.posterous.com

Innovation and Growth : Tom Peters Takes On Harvard Business Review

Thanks, Ted. It's about time the Harvard Business Review recognized the important issues raised by the entrepreneurial renaissance of the past 10 years. Since you're the Review's editor, I guess you deserve the credit for opening up the magazine to a debate on the subject, and for letting George Gilder lead it off with his article in your March-April issue. He was most eloquent in showing how, and why, entrepreneurship has made the United States more competitive in the international semiconductor market. But as for your own column in that same issue, well that's another matter. . . .

1 OK, I suppose there is a thriving industry built around the entrepreneurial phenomenon. You may also have noticed that there's a much, much bigger industry that thrives on advising and chronicling the sparkling personalities who run our largest companies. The Harvard Business School practically invented it. You and your colleagues sit on big-company for the giants. Are we to conclude that your views on the role of large companies are, ipso facto, suspect?

2 Yes, Ted, some guides to small business are that trite, but no serious student of entrepreneurship suggests that success is either easy or certain. To paint all of them as simple-minded cheerleaders is like writing off Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, and the Harvard Business Review just because The One-Minute Manager and a host of kindred publications make fixing General Motors seem as easy as one, two, three.

3 Come on, Ted. To begin with, what economic proposition offers anything but "modest plausibility," from the forecasts of Chase Econometrics to the pronouncements of Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan? And surely there is at least as much truth and plausibility in the work of David L. Birch and George Gilder as in the formerly fashionable hype of, say, John Kenneth Galbraith. You remember him. He's the sage who once wrote: "There is no more pleasant fiction than that technical change is the product of the matchless ingenuity of the small man forced to employ his wits to better his neighbor. Unhappily, it is a fiction. . . . A benign providence . . . has made the industry of a few large firms an almost perfect instrument for inducing technical change."

4 Ted, Ted, Ted. "Privileged few"? "Undistinguished many"? Even at Stanford, they wouldn't go quite this far. By "privileged few," you mean, I suppose, those who've been privileged to attend Harvard Business School, and other assorted denizens of the Fortune 500 boardrooms. But who do you include among the unwashed masses -- excuse me, the "undistinguished many"? Bill Gates? Steve Jobs? Don Burr? Tom Monaghan? Seymour Cray? Fred Smith? This is really too much, dear professor. It's no wonder that guys like poor Dick Nixon, the Whittier bench warmer, came to loathe the Harvard establishment.

5 Yes, it is. But it is easier, and more conventional, to exaggerate what big companies do, and what they've done in the face of new competition and a technological revolution. And what have big companies done lately? Lost jobs. Innovated less. Moved operations mindlessly, and prematurely, offshore. Failed to protect their markets. Kept their leaders insulated from reality (although that may be changing, thanks largely to the efforts of such financial entrepreneurs -- pardon the expression -- as T. Boone Pickens and the Hafts).

6 Now hold on, Ted. When it comes to imitativeness, lack of creativity, and aversion to risk, nobody can top your longtime friends at companies such as Procter & Gamble and NBC. I refer to you to The Bigness Complex, by economists Walter Adams (former Michigan State University president) and James W. Brock, who review numerous studies on the innovativeness of big companies: "Nor do giant firms display any appetite for undertaking more fundamental and risky research projects. That is, contrary to the image that bigness is conducive to risk-taking, there is no statistically significant tendency for corporate behemoths to conduct a 'disproportionately large share of the relatively risky R&D or of the R&D aimed at entirely new products and processes. On the contrary, they generally seem to carry out a disproportionately small share of [that] R&D. . . ."

7 Come, come. Condescension is one thing, but this is perverse. Of course, many start-ups fail. So do most new products from large companies. And, yes, companies -- as well as products -- often start out as "illusionary creations." A dream is illusionary by definition. To become reality, it must be modified again and again. Even then, it may come to naught. But without such dreams, there is no progress -- at IBM, at GE, or at Microsoft.

8 Watch it, Ted, you've just tripped. A couple paragraphs back, you were dismissing most start-ups for their lack of "exceptional enterprise or new ideas." Now, you're praising big companies precisely because they avoid exceptional enterprise and new ideas. So which is it -- bold is good, or bold is bad?

9 We all like to play the Big Numbers game, Ted, but these numbers are utterly meaningless. Nobody doubts that large companies spend a lot of money on R&D. The question is: what do they get, and produce, in return? All that spending hasn't kept the Fortune 500 from losing 2.8 million jobs since 1980. Meanwhile, the United States has gained nearly 10 million jobs over the same period, the vast majority created by small, growing companies. As a nation, we're getting a far better return on investments in entrepreneurship than on big-company R&D.

But we all know you can't win the Big Numbers game without producing a figure four times larger than the other guy's biggest number. So let me just add that, as impressive as IBM's $5.5 billion may seem, it is barely a quarter of the investment that new and ongoing businesses obtained last year from the "informal" capital network of aunts, cousins, dentists, and so on.

10 Finally, a simple statement of fact. Thanks, Ted.

11 On the contrary, there is precisely such a presumption. That's the whole point, Ted. We are in an era when the gazelles seem to have a clear advantage over the elephants. Markets are fragmenting. (Yes, I know, you are the grand doyen of "global branding," but hey, I won't rub it in.) Product cycles are shrinking. Competition is intensifying. And the technology of miniaturization is upon us. The elephants know what all this means, even if you don't. Why else would they be trying so hard to imitate gazelles -- downsizing, decentralizing, working overtime to make themselves look like collections of smaller companies? If you don't believe me, talk to your friends at P&G, Du Pont, Campbell Soup, and IBM, to name but a few.

12 Sure, Genentech grew fast, but it's still less than a tenth the size of Merck or American Home Products -- and doing just fine in the pharmaceutical big leagues, thank you. Anyway, I'm not saying there are no advantages to size. But there are also any number of inherent disadvantages, which we are just beginning to understand. These days, moreover, a midsize company can often achieve many of the advantages without the disadvantages -- by subcontracting, creative use of databases, strategic alliances, and so on.

13 Look, it's no big thing, but what you're saying here is: we bigger, Harvard-bred folk should really look out for the little folk -- give them a hand, or a ladder (to use your metaphor). It's all so nauseatingly condescending. Stop. Desist. We've had enough.

14 So you want us to shut up. Ted. You want us to stop "[discrediting] the large entities" that just happen to be so generous in their support of Harvard Business School, from which so many of their leaders graduated. And we're supposed to be grateful to these larger enterprises for "[producing] the capital and the markets that encourage and sustain new companies." You're saying the little guys, who create most of the jobs and do most of the innovating, are here courtesy of the big guys. Sure, Ted, right. Now tell us about the helping hand IBM gave to Control Data, Cray, Amdahl, Apple, Digital Equipment, Hewlett-Packard, Compaq, Sun Microsystems. . . . Isn't there some new best-seller about swimming with the sharks?

15 I suppose this is true, as far as it goes. But tell me, Ted: if company size is no big deal after all, why is HBR devoting its pages to a major debate on the subject? Of course, the "world's work gets done by all sizes of enterprise." What that statement overlooks are the real problems large companies are having because they are large, and the challenges they are facing from smaller companies -- which are producing better results with fewer resources.

Economies change, Ted. There have been long periods when predictability reigned, and large, stable enterprises thrived. But isn't it possible that we've entered a new era -- call it the Age of the Gazelle -- in which excessive bigness has become a handicap, while leanness and flexibility have emerged as advantages? There is much evidence to support such a view, not just in the United States, but in China, Belgium, Italy, Great Britain, and Spain, to name but a few of the countries where aggressive new companies are on the cutting edge of economic change. These days, even executives of large companies are questioning the advantages of size. Consider Don Povejsil, retired vice-president for corporate planning at Westinghouse, who recently stated that "most of the classical justifications of large size have proved to be of minimal value, or counter-productive, or fallacious."

That's why the Gilder article is so timely. Maybe you should go back and reread it. He makes a very convincing case that size is a profoundly important issue in today's economy -- an issue that can't be dismissed with platitudes about the need for companies big and small. via inc.com 

Jim Woods is principal and founder of InnoThink Group. A strategic innovation consulting firm engaged to catalyze bottom-line growth. He has worked with government, U.S. Army, MITRE Corporation, Pitney Bowes, Whirlpool, and 3M. Jim’s business experiences, extensive research on competitive strategy and innovation have given him a fresh perspective on improving individual and organizational performance. Jim is a prolific speaker on strategic innovation, creative leadership, uncertainty and competitive strategy. Speak with us for consulting or speaking engagements call 719-266-6703 or click here for more information.  Follow us @innothinkgroup LinkedIn

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Business Innovation : How Managers Buck The System

Sadly in particularly lean times when companies face relentless competition managers often forget their major task is to support front-line people. With all due respect, the grunts. They are the ones doing the real heavy lifting of the organization. Frankly they not the boys cloaked in the ivory tower are the ones with the real solutions. 

A manager’s job is to be an effective facilitator, grease the skids, increase the dialogue, increase even more listening and speed up actions through the multi-layered organization. Not constraining, preventing or slowing activity in the name of authoritarian control and turf rights.

In the Nordstrom’s organizational chart below you’ll notice the brilliant idea of a “helping hand” aimed upwards. 

It means everything has two purposes to foster absolute satisfaction with the employee customer and its corollary the external customer. You will be a helpmeet. Not a hindrance. Today great managers are on the phone expediting functions to speed delivery not quelling disruptions between sales and production. The new manager welcomes the nascent demands from the Minnesota sales team no matter how unreasonable at first glance.

What does the new manager do with the scheduling, inspections and score keeping? They turn them over to self managed teams. The team will manage the quality of the widgets. You’ll make sure work teams are impeccably trained to do their own inspections; pay attention to eliminating cross functional bottlenecks causing quality, scheduling and cost problems. Lastly, you proactively find ways to increase responsiveness. 

Jim Woods is principal and founder of InnoThink Group. An innovation and competitive strategy consultancy engaged to catalyze bottom-line growth. He has worked with government, U.S. Army, MITRE Corporation, Pitney Bowes, Whirlpool, and 3M. Jim’s business experiences, extensive research on competitive strategy and innovation have given him a fresh perspective on improving individual and organizational performance. Speak with us for consulting or speaking engagements call 719-266-6703 or click here for more information. 

How Managers Buck The System to Innovate

Sadly in particularly lean times when companies face relentless competition managers often forget their major task is to support front-line people. With all due respect, the grunts. They are the ones doing the real heavy lifting of the organization. Frankly they not the boys cloaked in the ivory tower are the ones with the real solutions. 

A manager’s job is to be an effective facilitator, grease the skids, increase the dialogue, increase even more listening and speed up actions through the multi-layered organization. Not constraining, preventing or slowing acti8vity in the name of authoritarian control and turf rights.

In the Nordstrom’s organizational chart below you’ll notice the brilliant idea of a “helping hand” aimed upwards. 

It means everything has two purposes to foster absolute satisfaction with the employee customer and its corollary the external customer. You will be a helpmeet. Not a hindrance. Today great managers are on the phone expediting functions to speed delivery not quelling disruptions between sales and production. The new manager welcomes the nascent demands from the Minnesota sales team no matter how unreasonable at first glance.

What does the new manager do with the scheduling, inspections and score keeping? They turn them over to self managed teams. The team will manage the quality of the widgets. You’ll make sure work teams are impeccably trained to do their own inspections; pay attention to eliminating cross functional bottlenecks causing quality, scheduling and cost problems. Lastly, you proactively find ways to increase responsiveness. 

Jim Woods is principal and founder of InnoThink Group. An innovation and competitive strategy consultancy engaged to catalyze bottom-line growth. He has worked with government, U.S. Army, MITRE Corporation, Pitney Bowes, Whirlpool, and 3M. Jim’s business experiences, extensive research on competitive strategy and innovation have given him a fresh perspective on improving individual and organizational performance. Speak with us for consulting or speaking engagements call 719-266-6703 or click here for more information. 

Can You Turnaround Groupthink to Innovate Properly?

 

It can be difficult to know how well a team is getting along or operating under the cloak of fear; suppressed dissent or Groupthink. Have you ever been in a meeting where the boss says, “Does anyone have a comment? Does anyone disagree?” Silence ensues.

Then the deadly, “Okay, silence is consent, you know.” The boss then moves on to other business. Months later. Another meeting. The boss pounds the table furiously. “Why isn’t anything happening? We had complete buy-in last quarter.” No one says anything. No doubt you’ve had this occur.

Warren Bennis found in a study that 70% of employees say nothing rather correct their superiors. This includes up to and including the likelihood of their committing grievous mistakes.

A study of the decision-making of the Kennedy Administration during the Bay of Pigs invasion concluded the disaster proceeded because of groupthink. Those with doubts remained silent. Groupthink can lead an organization down the path of mediocrity and obscurity. Where decisions become blame of circumstances by inerrant managers and pseudo leaders. Dissent and negative thinking considered subversive, can under appropriate managers and leaders prove innovative garnering substantial competitive advantage.

Why You Should Listen More to Malcontents and Negative Thinkers

One of the most serious threats facing organizations is perhaps too much positive thinking. And "leaders" who surround themselves addicitve personalites of "yes" men and women, which is largely associated with hierachal leadership. 

Everyone it seems believes, without question, the virtues of positive thinking and motivation. A belief in management without question or dissent. The fault lies in leadership.

With the beheading of Mary Queen of Scots in England, Phillip II of Spain informed the Pope that he was prepared to invade England and depose Elizabeth I. Phillip then, inaugurated one of the grandest programs of positive thinking in history.

Phillip was convinced that his cause was just, holy and right and that providence was on his side. So, he persuaded almost all the officers under him, including 8,000 sailors and 19,000 soldiers to his point of view. On May 29, 1588, before sailing, every man on board the 130 vessels that would take them to victory affirmed his belief in the mission.

One of the most remarkable moments in history and to think it all started with positive thinking and FIRM belief.

They lost.

Virtually every man involved, all 30,000 of them was highly motivated. But that didn’t help their cause either. A little more dissent or negative thinking, the soft voice on the back row, “hey how about this?” would have helped along with the positive thinking. Clear informed thinking could have changed history. Common sense, combined with passion makes a formidable organization in today’s wild and wacky business environment. Add skill, quality talent, and diversity of opinion then you have competitive advantage.  

It is the malcontents, the negative thinkers who innovate. They ask the right questions. They steer the vision against the coral shores of benchwarming managers who speak only in terms of job security. 

 

Organizational Culture, Penn State, and Avoidance: Ethics When No One Is Watching

It will be many years before the implications of the child sexual abuse perpetrated by Jerry Sandusky will be fully understood. As details continue to emerge in the present we find a horrifying pattern of abuse over many years and an organizational culture that enabled individuals at multiple levels of leadership to look the other way. The echoes of disbelief from similar scandals in the church ring in our ears. We have learned how deluded and deceptive pedophiles can be in securing relationships of trust to exploit children, rationalizing abhorrent behavior as something other than what it is – criminal assault.

Added to our immense grief for the physical and psychological harm done to innocent lives, is the realization that when leaders are made aware of a possible act of abuse, the instinct is to duck and cover. Is this the result of an individual character flaw? Is there some lack of professional training or development? Did they not understand the expectations and responsibilities they carry in positions of authority?

The report released Thursday from the Special Investigative Counsel, Louis J. Freeh, former director of the FBI, details the many failures of leadership involved at Penn State. One reference in the executive summary, however, makes a much broader sweeping statement about the cultural context of the university and the community:

“A culture of reverence for the football program that is ingrained at all levels of the campus community.”

It seems this statement could be adapted to many settings in which the decision to act is mitigated by a fear of bad publicity. The generic version would read, “A culture of reverence for the [fill in the blank] that is ingrained at all levels of the [organization].” Suddenly the pain of the Penn State community feels closer as we all know circumstances in which our regard for individuals or institutions can cause us to compromise on standards that cross moral, legal or ethical boundaries.

As I followed the news coverage of the events surrounding the emergence of the scandal through the Sandusky trial, I was struck by two events that appeared out-of-place. First, when the Penn State board of trustees made the decision to terminate Coach Joe Paterno (along with President Graham Spanier), the crowds protesting the end of Paterno’s career at Penn State seemed odd. The investigation was ongoing. The facts had not surfaced publicly. Yet the exuberant devotion to a sports idol and elevation of the football program to cult status revealed a distorted culture. Children had been sexually abused. We had many more questions than answers. Yet the crowds celebrated the hero-status of someone who knew about it and didn’t stop it. The situation did not call for a celebration; it called for reflection.

Second, the conclusion of the trial delivered a stack of guilty verdicts for Jerry Sandusky. Here again, crowds gathered as if it was a pep rally following the game. The fans cheered as the lawyers emerged from the courthouse to offer “post-game” remarks much like the coach and the MVP of the championship team. Media interviews followed on strategy and tactics. The coach for the losing team signaled he would be back with an appeal. One of the commentators on the news broadcast I was watching was stunned by what he saw. As a trial lawyer himself, he had seen many post trial settings, but nothing like this. The situation did not call for celebration; it called for reflection.

It’s inexcusable, but understandable that a distorted cultural context can give pause to leaders charged to act in ways that may be misunderstood or unpopular. We have much to learn from this tragedy. We have to find ways of developing healthy organizational cultures that will not bend to fears of bad publicity, but remain steadfast in ensuring well-being, providing justice and acting with integrity.

Mark Putnam is president of Central College in Pella, Iowa. He authors a blog, Mark: my words, at http://blogs.central.edu/president/ and can be reached at president@central.edu.

Want some good ideas? Sit in a cafe « BQF Innovation Blog

Researchers led by Ravi Mehta conducted experiments to understand how ambient sounds affect creative cognition. In one key trial, they tested people’s creativity at different levels of background noise by asking participants to brainstorm ideas for a new type of mattress or enumerate uncommon uses for a common object.

Compared to a relatively quiet environment (50 decibels), a moderate level of ambient noise (70 dB) enhanced subjects’ performance on the creativity tasks, while a high level of noise (85 dB) hurt it. Modest background noise, the scientists explain, creates enough of a distraction to encourage people to think more imaginatively. (Here’s a helpful chart on typical noise levels.)

The next time you’re stumped on a creative challenge, head to a bustling coffee shop, not the library.

Article in the Atlantic.

Full Study.

Paul Sloane

via bqf.org.uk

5 Success Tips from Award-Winning Entrepreneurs

Every entrepreneur faces challenges, and many of them will tell you it's how you handle those challenges that will determine success or failure as a business owner.

Here, five tips for success from business owners who know what growing and winning are all about. Consider these words of wisdom from Entrepreneur Magazine's Emerging Entrepreneur of 2011 Adam Nelson and Entrepreneur of 2011 award winner Lee Rhodes.

 1. Put your networking skills to work. "Find people you can learn from," says Nelson, founder and inventor of the Good Nite Lite, who first created his product to solve his son's difficulties falling asleep. "What you may not need from them today, you may need tomorrow."

2. Don't be swayed by naysayers. When Rhodes was pushed by bankers and experts to start manufacturing her hand-blown glass candleholders in China to save money, the experiment backfired. "We lost a fortune," says Rhodes, founder of Glassybaby, which donates a percentage of revenue to programs that help cancer patients. "I listened to people who didn't understand Glassybaby. It's all about the story and there was nowhere to fit 'Made in China' in my story." 

Related Video: Glassybaby Founder Lee Rhodes on Growth Mistakes

3. Keep taking risks. "Our personal motto is: 'Fail cheap, fail quick,'" Nelson says. "Don't be afraid to try."

4. Hire your weaknesses. "Remember as an entrepreneur, you're probably a big-picture person and the details aren't as important, but they will be and it'll come back to haunt you," Rhodes warns. "If you're not good at [something], make sure you have someone beside you that is, as you grow."

5. Don't be afraid to share your idea. "There's always the opportunity where they may not be able to help you, but somebody else will," Nelson says.

Are you already establishing your company as an industry leader? Consider throwing your hat in the ring to be considered for Entrepreneur magazine's Entrepreneur of 2012 awards. Deadline is June 15, so act fast.

Who do you think deserves a shot at Entrepreneur of 2012?
 

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Tom Peter's Little Big Things - "LEADERSHIP: What Do You Think?"

Organizational rigidities where one voice rules become tremendous impediments to growth.  

I really detest hierarchal management types. Where employees are treated as expendable; a means to an end. They prohibit the growth of an organization more than its competitors. We've learned in the past two years of business heads who seemed to have all the right moves. Market share is up and customers appear to salivate for their products albeit temporarily. We learn today many of those companies are having anemic shareholder returns. One may say this is the result of an economy convulsing. I say not. With all of our management meetings and wonderful communication devices at our core the central problem in every organization is communication. Not talking. There's certainly plenty of that.

The myriad advantages of interactive leadership are well stated by Tom Peter's in the video below. No one says it better.

 

 

 

How people are treated especially in times of stress is a powerful predictor of success during times of plenty. One of the problems in waiting for the economy to loosen before doing the right things if you will is the management style of perpetual victimization. Nothing is our 

 

 

Add Children to Change Your Meetings #edc #innovation

You're wondering what is the purpose of this photo with children having fun. Well, because they are doing more than having fun. They are inventing. Have you ever noticed how children will invent, reinvent and repeat a thing? They fall and fall and fall. Then they just keep trying with a smile. It is amazing to me that babies ever learn to walk. If an adult learned to walk at any age we'd crawl everywhere. All babies know is failure. Fall. Fall. Fall. But because they reach for what is out of their reach they succeed. 

 

 

Here is the point? Ever been to a city council or community meeting only to ask yourself, "Why the heck are we having this meeting?" The answer is simple. Not at all complex. The people with the "Zoom Zoom Zip Aw Shucks ides" are locked out. In your Monday morning meetings look for someone who gets on your nerves. They'll push you to places you never dared go. Making you a Cinderella come back story. If you need me I’m here. Jim

Startup That Changed How Orbitz, Gap, And Obama Collect Your Data: Ryan White

Online data tracking is a messy, broken world that contributes to slower page loads, overtaxes IT teams, and leaves everyone from global corporations to the U.S. President's campaign without complete control of their data. Moxie Award-winner BrightTag has a fix.

It might not be Spy vs. Spy exactly, but today’s business fortunes are increasingly won or lost on intelligence. In the brave new digital economy where consumers and their behaviors can be modeled with breathtaking specificity based on their online crumb trails, intelligence is data, and data is money. But behind the scenes, it’s a messy, broken world. The ever-proliferating invisible tags used by websites and third parties to collect information and track visitors can slow page loads, push overtaxed IT teams into despair, and leave companies without complete control of their data.

Enter Chicago startup BrightTag, which says it’s found a way to overhaul the creaky cobbled-together system of tag-based data mining while giving businesses ownership of the information they glean from site visitors. In so doing, the growing startup has landed some serious clientele, ranging from the Obama campaign to corporate giants such as Gap and Old Navy. The company is also getting some hometown love--last week BrightTag took home three of Built In Chicago’s annual Moxie Awards, including Best B2B Startup, CTO of the Year, and Startup of the Year.

The three-year-old company is a bright star in a growing constellation of Chicago tech startups. Building on the meteoric rise of first-wave Chicago startups such as Orbitz, Groupon, FeedBurner, and GrubHub, a whole slew of new outfits are setting up shop in the Windy City and persuading investors that Chicago is more than a layover. Chicago-based startups raised more than a half-billion dollars in venture capital last year, and new infrastructure completed this spring in the tech-heavy River North hood has given the scene an added boost. In March, tech incubator Catapult Chicago opened 12,000 square feet of space where the nonprofit provides cheap rents, mentoring, and support services for more than a dozen startups. Not to be outdone, the nonprofit 1871 opened 50,000 square feet of renovated space in the colossal Merchandise Mart this May. The organization provides space for roughly 100 startups (over 300 applied) similarly seeking affordable rents and a collaborative vibe.

Its offices just a Frisbee’s throw from 1871’s new digs, BrightTag is a next-generation startup with deep roots in some of yesterday’s biggest Chicago standouts. BrightTag CEO Mike Sands joined Chicago-based Orbitz in 2000 and was chief operating officer by the time he left in 2006, while BrightTag Chief Technology Officer Eric Lunt is one of the founders behind Chicago startup FeedBurner (scooped up by Google in 2007). Fittingly, BrightTag is in the business of providing solutions to some very technical problems afflicting its startup forebears and the way in which they manage website data.

It’s hard to grasp what’s most innovative about the company without a little bit of tech-talk:Tags--varying from bite-sized pixels to elaborate JavaScript code--are sent to your web browser (along with the page’s content) whenever you load a webpage. The tag orders your browser to round up and deliver specific bits of data to third-party data collection servers (run by marketing companies and data brokers), which then leave behind a cookie to keep tabs on the user. Tags are the invisible tools websites use to gather data about their users (Jenny almost bought shoes while comparing bassinets, for example), but they also allow third-party data collectors to assemble increasingly sophisticated sketches of users and micro-demographics, which can then be used to launch precision-targeted ad campaigns (why Jenny might get an especially tempting shoe offer at a vulnerable hour four days later while visiting an unrelated site).

Tags are powerful marketing tools, but with the average large corporate website harboring anywhere from 50 to 150 tags throughout its website, they can also be a colossal pain. According to BrightTag execs, high tag counts can lead to slow page loads, create tons of work for IT departments, and hand third-parties data firms the keys to potentially lucrative data streams. (Those third-party firms access a website’s data through the tags hosted by the first-party website. In return, those marketing and analytics companies crunch the data and deliver all sorts of sophisticated consumer information, and they also enable companies to dangle precision-guided ads before consumers as they flit across the web.)

But the current system is rather inefficient. “Tag management has been a mess for a long, long time,” said Adrian Tompsett, vice president of business development for DataXu, an online marketing and analytics company (and BrightTag partner) that recently helped Ford test ad campaigns that display relevant online ads based on variables like the make of car the potential buyer was researching and how close they were to purchasing it.

BrightTag founder Marc Kiven, leaning on 15 years of experience working for digital marketing companies such as Avenue A | Razorfish, says he began building BrightTag in the summer of 2009 after hearing continual tag-related complaints from his digital marketing colleagues. His company’s solution is a cloud-based system where a website can simply put a single piece of code on their site (rather than dozens of tags), allowing the site to send a master set of data back to BrightTag, where it’s cleaned up and “normalized” before being sent to approved third-party marketing and analytics partners.

Without having to process dozens of tags on dozens of pages, companies such as BrightTag client Orbitz can change their marketing strategies (for instance, which ads appear on which pages before which potential customer) much faster, as well as easily adopt new privacy standards (by giving web visitors a choice on whether or not their data is shared with third parties, say) without having to make individual changes on dozens of third-party tags. “If the website owner can’t control the data being collected on their site, it’s hard to ask them to turn around and address the consumer privacy issues,” Sands says.

Investors have taken note: BrightTag has raised some $23 million in capital and landed heavyweight clients, including JetBlue, Banana Republic, Crate & Barrel, and Barack Obama (his campaign website employs BrightTag technology). Rahm Emanuel even swung through the startup’s River North offices when he was running for mayor and looking for ideas to give local tech a boost.

Last November, BrightTag announced a new one-click privacy button that websites could place on their sites that would let a visitor opt out of being tracked on the site by third-party data sleuths. While the feature has been adopted by some of the company’s European clients, it hasn’t gained traction in the United States, where laxer privacy standards still prevail.

Yet the debate around U.S. standards is approaching the boiling point this year. In February the White House called for a comprehensive “privacy bill of rights,” followed by the FTC’s long-awaited March report in which the agency called for the industry to adopt a “Do Not Track” option in browsers by year’s end. While the online data industry has signaled some support for a Do Not Track browser button, it remains unclear what that would actually mean--no tracking period, or no third-party tracking, or just no targeted ads? Just how many tracking loopholes and exceptions will the adopted standard have? It’s not hard to find pushback on data restrictions from online marketers: Microsoft recently infuriated the ad industry when it announced its Internet Explorer 10 would have “Do Not Track” as the browser’s default setting.

But even if stricter online privacy standards are ultimately adopted and enforced, BrightTag says its business model can easily adapt, as it already has in catering to both U.S. and European markets. Barring the unlikely curtailment of the data-fed online marketing and analytics industry, the fast-growing startup will keep helping corporate clients drill, refine, and ship vast reservoirs of data. “We’re not hiding,” says Sands. “We are out of the box already ready for whatever protocols come down the pipe.” via Fast Company and CEO.com

Follow the conversation on Twitter using the tag #WhyHere.

[Obama Image: Christopher Dilts for Obama for America]