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The Way Forward

Sunday, December 16th, 2012

I had the privilege of facilitating the closing session for the Men’s Leadership Institute yearlong program.  We called the last session, The Way Forward.  For me, moving forward as a steward of what I have learned so far involved capturing in a book what I had learned about leadership through my experiences as a leader and follower, lectures I attended, books I’ve read, mentors who coached me, but mostly what I learned from my mistakes and the adversity we all face.

I believe the key component that separates effective leaders from average leaders is the discipline to sacrifice and the ability to endure hardship to strengthen one’s resolve. In other words, leaders are comfortable with being uncomfortable because they know every life event thrown their way can be a tremendous learning experience.

Leadership can be an illusion of control, but changing your perspective on everyday experiences can provide inspirational learning opportunities for personal growth and development.  I believe leadership development can occur every day if you’re observant, reflective, and determined. This course has provided you practical leadership principles for managing oneself, creating a personal strategy, and effectively engaging others to assist you with your own developmental objectives.

Turn yourself into a living laboratory by empowering yourself to start a lifelong journey of observation, persistence, humility, and a disciplined approach to trial and error (with lots of emphasis on the errors because that is where the learning always takes place).

Keep exploring what effective leaders actually do and how they do it, and you will continuously improve your personal effectiveness to develop and inspire people to achieve more than they thought they could.

What questions should you routinely ask yourself?  On a daily basis, what steps should you take to find personal success in your life’s work?  Do you know your life’s work?  Some say it’s the place where your passion and others’ needs intersect.  I believe a key determinant of success is whether you can rely on yourself for self-coaching.  However, self-reliant leadership is dependent on achieving a balance between independence and the interdependence of working with others to accelerate your own personal growth and development.

Leaders are molded from the experiences of their life, and great leaders learn from these experiences (more from the setbacks) at a faster rate than others. I suspect that great leaders intuitively know how to pick organizations and roles where their interests, skills, experiences, and values are aligned with their passions.

Keep focusing on learning how to learn – knowing yourself, learning from your mistakes, learning from observation, questioning, and using inevitable situations that will test your mettle while forcing adjustments to create rich learning experiences. Keep a journal.  I cannot offer a step-by-step list for various leadership challenges, but the ideas above can provide a framework to help you learn about becoming self-reliant to take charge of your own personal growth as a leader in order to create a powerful future. You will have to adapt and change.

Remember…  first, you have to know yourself.  Becoming self-reliant with your own leadership development is synonymous with knowing which questions to ask yourself and having the courage to answer them and act.

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No Trust – No Leadership

Sunday, December 2nd, 2012

 

During the past week, my students have been discussing the challenge of leading virtual teams, and the prerequisite that came up most was trust.  There seems to be a perception that leaders have trouble trusting remote workers, and long before Lencioni wrote a book on the Five Dysfunctions of a Team, we knew that absence of trust leads to team dysfunction.  A student in my class asked if trust has to be earned, or whether it should given in order to be received.  I have often said that a lot of bad behavior at work is from some level of insecurity, and not trusting your team reflects more on the leader than the team.

William Glasser, author of Choice Theory®, eloquently described relationships and habits that are closely aligned with building trust:

Seven Caring Habits

  • Supporting
  • Encouraging
  • Listening
  • Accepting
  • Trusting
  • Respecting
  • Negotiating differences

Seven Deadly habits

  • Criticizing
  • Blaming
  • Complaining
  • Nagging
  • Threatening
  • Punishing
  • Bribing or rewarding to control

It’s hard to imagine any of the caring habits described above are not dependent on active listening as the baseline competency/habit.  Attached is a video mini-lecture I delivered to my team on the subject, and I’m interested in your thought on how trust is earned in today’s complicated and virtual environments?

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Always

Sunday, October 7th, 2012

Happy First Birthday, Liam! I can’t believe how fast this first year has gone.

When your uncle went to West Point, the advice I imparted was about doing:

            • Do what’s right and do your best.
            • Do what you say you’re going to do.
            • Always treat others with dignity and respect.

Those are things to do, but as importantly, there are things to be:

            • Be present.
            • Be gracious.
            • Always be humble.

Our 91 year-old friend, George Callahan, always reminds us not to worry too much about the future as it will be here soon enough.  And I know this note will mean something to you soon enough!

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Leadership & Entrepreneurship in Ireland – Day Thirteen

Wednesday, June 27th, 2012

Last year when we were in Dublin, the Queen visited.  This year, we’re in Belfast for her visit, which was just as historic as she shook hands with an ex-IRA chief.

The Dublin students traveled to Belfast and made their first visit of the trip to Northern Ireland.  We’re all one big class again.  We met with Norman Apsley today, and he provided a tour of the Titanic Pump House, and an overview of the NI Science Park.  Norman was extremely gracious with his time, as he had earlier met with the Queen as well.  The picture that contains the students is inside the dry-dock where the Titanic sat within 18 feet of concrete, 50 feet below the surface in a bay 1,000 feet long.

The other picture is of Bryan Keating and his lovely wife Linda.  We had the great fortune of spending an evening at their lovely home, and will look forward to his company again tomorrow with the students.

The students and I spent time this afternoon discussing their experiences here from a business, social and political perspective.  The class is working together extremely well, and their insights on matters of another culture are enlightening, and refreshing.  I trust we’re creating experiences that will serve as signposts to reflect back on over the course of a career!

For an additional perspective – see one the student blogs on her experience in Ireland so far!

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West Point Graduation Week – Day Five

Thursday, May 24th, 2012

After four years, the cadets are really showing appreciation for all the friends and family that enabled them to be here; and to be focused and successful while they were here.  The picture in this photo is my son with my parents in the exact same spot at the Thayer Hotel where my Irish grandmother stood with my Uncle 61 years ago.  Makes me wonder how fate intervenes with how warriors are wired…

The cadets are relaxed, uninhibited, and we’ve been hearing stories that simultaneously make us laugh and cringe!  West Point claims to be all about academics, physical fitness and military discipline, but I think the real learning here comes from shared adversity without the opportunity to easily quit or walk-away from un-pleasantries.  Leading peers is extremely difficult, especially with a heavy class load and constant 360-degree evaluation, but the experience is rich because it frames the interpersonal relationship challenges that are in every organization regardless of size, experience, status, or cultural context.  The life-long lessons are in self-awareness (i.e., constraints and capabilities), team dynamics, and focusing on the result that matters most: Lessons the cadets will repeat as lieutenants until the lesson is truly mastered.

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Seanathair

Monday, October 10th, 2011

Seanathair is Gaelic for grandfather, and I became one less than 72 hours ago.  It sounds cliché, but seeing my grandson for the first time was quite surreal.  He’s a lucky kid as he has a loving family with three uncles and four grandparents still in their 50’s – all close by.  Of course Liam Henry is a beautiful baby, but beyond that I wonder who he’ll become… and who he already is?  How much of who he’ll become will be nature versus all the nurturing he’s sure to experience?  How much of his personality is already pre-programmed and just waiting to emerge?

To the Liam Henry that will read this some time from now:  Know that you were loved even before you were born.  As you learn and develop and grow and mature, you will feel pressure to succeed and flourish.  Success is often defined by others, but the drive for significance comes from within.  It can only be achieved through the desire to serve and make a positive difference in the lives of others.  Your world will be more fast-paced and competitive than I can even imagine, but there will be considerable opportunities to lead and effect positive change.  There is no doubt the encouragement you’ll receive will help you determine your own path, because this loving family will help you develop the self reliance to know which questions to ask yourself while having the courage to answer them and act.

Welcome Liam Henry.  I can’t wait to see old things in new ways, and be enlightened from those questions I know you’ll ask.  I even hope I can answer a few of them.

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That’s a long shadow!

Tuesday, September 6th, 2011

The night before I was going to climb a mountain by myself, my wife got a call from a friend who needed her to take her daughter to the emergency room.  I went to sleep, and two hours later, my wife flipped on the light in the bedroom and I thought, “What the heck?”  To my great surprise, the emergency room story was a ruse, and she flew my son home from West Point for the Labor Day weekend to accompany me on my climb to celebrate my 50th.  I generally dislike surprises, but this was a wonderful surprise.  At dinner that night, I told my wife my pack was heavier than I’d prefer, and I was missing my son.  Not just because he’d carry a heavier pack, but we have the best conversations when we climb.

Four hours after he surprised me, we were in the car headed to the trailhead for Huron Peak in the Collegiate Peaks of Colorado.  We started climbing just as the sun was coming up, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.  The trail had three sections.  Steep switchbacks through the trees; a gradual climb through a meadow; and a steep section above tree line.  When we hit the top of a ridge, we were met with a beautiful rising sun that cast long shadows across the rocks.  As we hiked I noticed that our shadows were in synch, and my son’s shadow overshadowed mine.  I said, “That’s a long shadow!”  I wasn’t thinking deep thoughts per se, because I was focused on pushing because my son was literally on my heels.  I started to think that at the age of 50, the best thing I could wish for is that my kids continue to overshadow me as they pursue their dreams.

It was indeed a great weekend, and a reminder that even a little adversity, like climbing, provides a perspective that would otherwise be elusive.

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Mentors and Coaches – Is there a difference?

Sunday, August 7th, 2011

Mentor – “A wise and trusted counselor or teacher.”

Coach – “A person who trains an athlete.”

One of my most rewarding career experiences came when I was an information and technology trainer at a major pharmaceutical company.  My two bosses comprised an incredible mentoring team that taught me much more than what I imparted on the students that cycled through our program.  My immediate supervisor and his boss had worked together for years, and knew each other like family.

My immediate supervisor was often misunderstood by other managers in the organization.  He was an intellectual and did not fit the typical, country-club executive: and I admired him for that.  What I learned from him was how to be a keen observer in the classroom to know whether learning was actually taking place, and if not, adjust so that it could; and would.  For him, it was all about the students.  As what I learned in the army, always put your charges first.  My boss’s name was Gordon Marquette, and he always astounded me by seeing things other did not… or could not.  He not only heard what was spoken, but he heard what was said – and not said (the unheard).  He could interpret body language in the context of group dynamics, and he was able to watch an instructor’s nuanced affect (or not) on students.  Even more remarkably, he had total recall of a two-hour block of instruction.

During debriefings (coaching), his observations demonstrated a total commitment to my development, and that led to trust, respect and loyalty from me.  To this day, I am one of his biggest fans, and will be forever grateful.  I define this as leadership, and he certainly helped me understand my effect on others while teaching.  His observations helped me discover where I needed to adjust and he was supremely patient in helping me come up with solutions that I could commit to – that is, changes I needed to make in my own attitude and behaviors.

What made the experience even more remarkable was my boss’s boss – a man by the name of Tom Markey.  As a college sophomore, Tom was on Loyola University Chicago’s famed basketball team that won a national championship in 1963.  Tom always wore a suit, but I could always picture him in old Converse canvass rubber-toed high-top sneakers.  He was always bent at the ready as if he was expecting a pass, and he often asked, “Are you on today, Jan?”  To which there was only one acceptable reply: “I’m always on, Tom!”  He’d then say, “Thataboy!”  And it was OK that he used the word boy.  He was that kind of coach and mentor.  You just wanted to win for him and the team.

Gordon and Tom were both mentors and coaches.  As my coaches, they help me hone my performance in the interest of the team and ultimately, the organization.  As mentors, they provided advice, shared knowledge and experiences, and used a Socratic approach to help me self-discover.  In essence, the helped germinate the seed that has bloomed into what I refer to as self-reliant leadership.

“The dream begins with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you to the next plateau, sometimes poking you with a sharp stick called ‘truth.’” – Dan Rather

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Leadership & Entrepreneurship in Ireland – Course Wrap-up

Sunday, June 19th, 2011

We had a great event on June 15th where the students presented their team projects to a great audience of Colorado business leaders.  Belfast and Dublin were both represented in the room as the Colorado Irish Network also attended!

The students did a great job, and shared with the audience what they learned from the 39 speakers we met in Ireland, the two speakers we had in Denver, and the business leaders studied by the four student teams:

  • Gerry Breen, Lord Mayor of Dublin
  • David Byrne, head of high growth markets, Enterprise Ireland
  • Oliver Hughes, Founder, Porterhouse Brewing Company
  • Caelen King, Founder and CEO of WhatClinic.com

The feedback from the students and the audience has been terrific, and we hope to make another trip next year.  As for next year, we’re thinking about some new ideas:

  • It would be ideal to conduct organized, formal, and specific market research that we can share broadly to benefit Ireland and the US.
  • Perhaps we could bring a small group of students to actually do a sponsored project for a company – e.g., marketing plan, sales strategy, business development, etc.
  • Lastly, we would relish the chance to reciprocate and host Irish business leaders, government officials, and academia (professors and students)!

In the end, we have much to learn from the Irish about the development of deep and meaningful relationships with those with whom we work.  We can also learn a thing or two about humility – “All egos must be checked at the door!”  In the end, there is a great deal in common between the Irish and Coloradans:  Same population numbers, we’re both an “island,” we have a focus on technology, we’re entrepreneurial, and we both have a great talent pool.  The only “real” difference is altitude; but certainly not attitude!

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Leadership & Entrepreneurship in Ireland – Post Script

Saturday, May 28th, 2011

Relaxing as a tourist in London today before we head back to the States on Monday.  I put this picture in because it’s Memorial Day weekend, and feeling like I am supposed to be back home rather than abroad… hard to explain…

If you are reading this and will be in Denver on June 15th, you are very welcome to attending our trip-recap/project presentations on Wednesday, June 15th from 6-8pm in the Tivoli Student Center in downtown Denver.

In the mean time, I thought I would list my personal take-aways from the past two weeks:

  • Based on the comments we heard, one would think the only schools that exist and matter in the United States are Harvard and Stanford.  I think all our schools could do a much better job being connected internationally.
  • I heard more about Canada in the last two weeks than I have in the last two years.  Our immigrations laws are keeping highly talented people out, and these people are now contributing to other countries collective knowledge.
  • Every single leader we met focused exclusively on passion – not money.
  • The leaders we met certainly appreciate a solid education, and support a lifelong approach to learning.  However, the leaders urged our students to use experience as the best teacher at this point in their careers.
  • You can’t do it alone.  Every leader needs a support network for different purposes – i.e., emotional, knowledge, financial, etc.  And those relationships need to be reciprocal in nature.
  • Not a single leader said that keeping work-life balance is easy.  It takes a lot of work, but work is never more important than family.  If you lose out on key events with your family, you can’t get them back.
  • You must know when to delegate, how to delegate, and how to follow-up without micro-managing.
  • Almost every leader said that in hindsight, they would have taken more risks, and bigger risks earlier rather than later.
  • The entrepreneurs cautioned against giving away too much ownership too soon.
  • Leaders must stay focused, and say No to a lot of opportunities brought forth by subordinates.  Part of focus is growing organically versus through acquisitions and mergers.
  • Most of the firms we met had a core set of values that were remarkablely similar – e.g., do your best, do what’s right, and treat others right.  The key is to provide unique examples of behavior expectations for each value in a way that support the desired culture.  And these behaviors need to be creatively repeated often, and can never be assumed to exisit without reinforcement.
  • Every leader was highly competitive with themselves, and many of them were most motivated when someone said, “You can’t.”
  • Hiring the right sales people is absolutely essential, and very, very difficult.  The organization needs to know that everyone is in sales, and that everyone is in sales support.
  • In the beginning, middle and end, it is all about people.  Period.

The points above are a summary of many pages of notes based on over 35 people that addressed our class.  In the end, I would have to say the past two weeks served as a significant learning boost for me.  In addition, I was reminded that the successful leaders by any measure were those that have a balance of determination and humility.  I think every person we heard speak said that a requirement of their organization was that egos get checked at the door.

Of course we learned a great deal about Irish culture, politics, business, and economics.  In the end, there are more similarities than differences between us, and we’re similarly motivated to make a positive difference in the lives of others.  My hope is that the students learned as much about themselves as they did the leaders we met, and that it will help them in the future as they lead, create, innovate, and develop others that come after them. I hope that we also created a small bridge between Ireland and the great state of Colorado so that students and business people alike will think of the Rocky Mountains in addition to the Northeast and California!

See you on the 15th of June I hope!  Slainte!

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