Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Week #9: Prosperity Challenge & Future of Management
Especially because we were running out of time, it would be great to get your comments and "learnings" from the “Strength I See in You” exercise. We can review these comments at the start of the last class.
Please also post your comments about--
a) experiences with the Be Ordinary Live-With. Some find the word "ordinary" hard to deal with; we know we are all unique, one-of-a-kind and somewhat special... If this is the case, substitute the word "authentic"-- as in being true to yourself and valuing yourself for who you are. Please share.
b) further comments and thoughts about Steve Jobs and his leadership “qualities”. Also what about the future of management? How do you see organizations in general, and yours in particular, evolving given some new requirements and operating environments?
c) reactions to the Mt Everest case, in advance of our conversation. Within our leadership discussions, we have talked about willingness to take risk and make mistakes. This case goes farther into disastrous results... However, we can learn from it and relate some of the "errors" to what we have covered. What do you think?
Have an enjoyable holiday—using the live-with, naturally, to get through any tough situations….
See you on December 2nd
Julie and Hal
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Ordinary – I was brought up in a culture to be modest and humble, which could easily be confused perceived as being ordinary and average like others but as I got to discover and know more about myself and others around me, I realized that everyone has their own strengths which you bring to others. Something ordinary and “not a big deal, effortless” to one could be completely unique and admired for to others. It’s more the ability to know who you really are, be comfortable and proud of yourself. Societal and peer pressure is something I believe we all battle daily – to try and blend in and be like the rest while we lose touch of valuing ourselves as individuals and what we can bring and share with others our own differences. What I learned over the years was in order to have a happy life, you have to be truly honest and happy with yourself. Do not count on others to make you happy - you are responsible for your own happiness and be true to yourself. Seek what you believe in and stand strong behind that. This dawn upon me when I took on a leadership position where I was concerned if I would be able to do the job “well” but that statement was based on me comparing myself with the individual who previously had the job. I was trying to be like him instead of believing in my own strengths and values that I will be bringing to the team and believing as well those who chose me to be part of the leadership team to lead this group of individuals. The see the diversity I bring to the group as well as my “differences” which they value and I need to understand that and embrace that. That to me is more than being ordinary but being comfortable and proud of who you are and know that everyone has something special and great to bring to the table.
ReplyDeleteI recommend you read "Lead In" by Sheryl Sandberg. She talks about comparing ourselves to others a lot, especially how women compare themselves to men leaders instead of focusing on their own qualities.
DeleteOn Jobs and his leadership qualities: To me Steve’s leadership qualities and style are known to be more abrasive, authoritative and commanding. In general, most people will agree that his style of leadership will not go well, yet Jobs proved many wrong as he re-built one of the most successful companies and gain loyalty to many. His strategy of narrowing Apple’s products to re-focus helped the company to bring it to where it is today. I believe Jobs’ vision and passion/his love of what he does played a major role in the success of the company. Will things continue for Apple the way it did when Jobs ran the company? Only time will tell as both him and Tim Cook seems to have different styles in management. In my experience, I’ve learned that different situations call for different styles – in situations where decisions needs to be made quickly and in times of challenges, I feel the commanding style would be more effective than democratic due to time constraint and the need to make a decision immediately. In my opinion, a good leader would possess the skills or awareness of the different styles and be able to apply each style based on the situation.
ReplyDeleteHello, hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving weekend.
ReplyDelete"The Strength I See in You" exercise made us focus on the good qualities of others and letting them know their unique strengths. I felt that everyone was bonding more. People were really looking into each other's eyes, and they were radiating. A lot of us had similar strengths. Personally, I felt more confident after the exercise. I had "forgotten" about some of my strengths, and it was really encouraging to hear them from people I don't know that well. It's also a useful exercise for the end of year assessments/appraisals at work.
a) Being ordinary to me is being yourself, being passionate about what you do, without comparing yourself to others or putting yourself above or below others. When I was younger, I had low confidence and would compare myself to others. When you do that, it makes you feel bad about yourself and it creates a distance between you and others. Similarly, people who feel better than others alienate themselves from others. I think in businesses with strong hierarchies, people will find it more difficult to be ordinary than in companies like W.L. Gore and IDEO.
b) Steve Jobs was a passionate visionary. He really wanted to contribute to society. He wanted to build a company "from the heart" and was not out "to make another buck", as in this video about building NEXT: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHsHKzYOV2E. He was engaged and engaging and a great motivator. A lot of former Apple employees had left Apple and joined him to build NEXT in pursuit of Jobs's vision. I think his visionary quality was stronger than his pacesetting style, and this is why he was so successful.
I think in general organizations are becoming more creative, right-brain.
I was at Kepler's bookstore in Menlo Park, and in the Business section about 50% of the books I saw had "creative" or "creativity" in the title or description: Creative Confidence (of course), Creative intelligence, Creativity, Thinking in New Boxes. I bought "Build your Dreams", "Flow", and "Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office".
In my own company I've also seen a shift towards more right-brain thinking. We now have a "shared purpose". We had another offsite 10 days ago (the 3rd in 2 months), this time with 70 people. This is the first time in 8.5 years that everyone's input was encouraged and valued. There was a lot of collaboration, team work, there were lots of questions, and they had organized a strategy game for us. Unfortunately, it was called a "war game", which I find a poor choice of words. I wonder why some companies use army terminology. I find it too aggressive and feel that it creates distance. Is it just me? What do others think?
Hi!
DeleteI like your approach about the steve jobs cade, completely agree opp. At the end, His visionary quality was stronger that any issues with his leadership style.
About the experience that you shared about your company, I think is an interesting issue the impact of the terminologybon how you perceive the exercise. Maybe this war terminology xould be a little aggresive, however I wonder what would be the results if they use somethin more "soft", maybe they had the feeling that this way, people would take it in a serious way or just gave it the "impirtance" they wanted. However, bases on what you described I think the goal was achieved since you could actualky evidence the team work and people felt their ideas were listened and they were somehow "connected".
c) Reading the article about the Mt. Everest disaster, both leaders (Hall and Fischer) struck me as arrogant and overconfident, and in contrast with what we covered in the class. Hall started his company Adventure Consultants to "generate profits". Fischer had a desire for recognition and publicity, the opposite of being ordinary.
ReplyDeleteThe leaders didn't get the right people on the team. Some people were inexperienced, had health issues or signed up for the wrong reasons. Some aspired to be the oldest person or oldest female to reach the summit.
The trip was not planned very well. Fischer spent a lot of time solving logistical issues. He could have hired someone else to take care of that. The radios were old and heavy and didn’t work well. There was not enough oxygen.
It seems there was a disconnect in the team. People were form different cultures, spoke different languages. Nothing was done to break down barriers and make the team members comfortable with each other. There seemed to be a lack of trust. Team members worried about what others would think about them, about not being accepted (VOJ, lack of compassion, empathy).
The leaders didn't listen well to their clients. When Krakauer dismissed his concerns to Hall, he dismissed him as being "pathetic". Hall was not living in the present. He thought that "since it worked 39 times in the past, it would work this time as well". Boukreev's feelings and intuition were not listened to. Both leaders "downplayed his intuitions".
Hall used a commanding leadership style when he said that his word will be absolute law (turning around at 2 pm) and that it could not be discussed until afterward. Both leaders knew from experience that it would be hard to send people down when they were so close to the summit. If they knew this, why didn’t they work with their clients to help them understand better the importance of turning back on time.
A few clients turned back before reaching the summit. They were true to themselves and made the right decision.
Clients were "indoctrinated not to question the guides' judgment and never thought that a guide might need help from a client." There was a hierarchy with top-down orders. People did not feel equal or empowered.
On being "ordinary" – it is important to understand one's strengths and limitations. Focusing on your strengths and doing what you love are important steps to living an "ordinary" life. In my experience of being "ordinary" I have also realized that we can accomplish more together. Seeking and developing partnerships with others who have different strengths and perspectives enriches my life experience and keeps me on a continuous learning journey.
ReplyDeleteGiven the advances in worldwide technology, global communications and multi-national business relationships – the world is becoming more inter-connected, which means there are fewer barriers to innovation and great ideas. What does this mean in terms of the future of management? Successful organizations will probably be the ones who can leverage the best ideas to solve our increasingly difficult and complex challenges. As we have seen with companies such as IDEO and W.L. Gore, they have been successful in fostering innovation by breaking the traditional "top-down" decision making process. In these two example companies, the work environment focuses the team's collective innovation – decisions are made based on the quality of ideas, not titles. Although innovation is difficult to predict or manage, IDEO and W.L. Gore's cultures are great examples.
ReplyDeleteDid it seem strange to anyone else how climbing Mt. Everest became such a thriving business for the affluent? (especially in the early to mid-1990s) And were these clients with zero or limited climbing experience being "ordinary" by signing up to conquer Mt. Everest? Some of the most disturbing aspects of this article involved the questionable leadership behavior and lack of team environment. For example, Rob Hall mostly demonstrated leadership styles such as commanding (coercive) and pace-setting. Given that his clients were novice climbers, Hall could have done more to establish a positive, supportive team-oriented environment. Also during critical situations when everyone could have benefited from decisive action, the leaders waffled. Per the article, Hall and Fischer could not agree whether 1pm or 2pm was the mandatory descent time. And as it turned out, some climbers waited until 4pm to begin the descent, which was too late by anyone's standards. It is unfortunate that questionable decisions led to such tragedy.
ReplyDeleteStrengths I See in You: Exercise was an interesting counterpoint to the exercise in which we faced our fears. What I found most enjoyable was how good it felt to be on the giving end. I am not sure that we spent enough time on the activity to achieve the goal of really identifying one another’s true self (seems that would require several more rounds where people can move past the details of the story any into the motivations and underlying personality traits that drive the story and the decisions underlying the situation and outcome) but it is a valuable tool to help a group practice the seeing with heart. I will be interested to know if this is a personal or group experience, but in comparing the two activities, the fear-facing is having more long-lasting impact for me.
ReplyDeleteBe Ordinary: This has proven to be the hardest heuristic in the set because it seems to get at not only your own behaviors but also to pick at many of the values of our American society. We live in a culture that is places a premium on materialism (in particular in this season of Black Friday and Cyber Monday) and winning. And, many corporate environments have approval and comparison baked into their core. I was disappointed to find that I have plugged into these “norms” more than I would have admitted just two weeks ago. After a few frustrating days where failure seemed to be the theme, I ended up needing to tackle single strategies one at a time (focusing on one for a day or two and then moving focus to the next). One tool within the chapter that I found extraordinarily valuable was the idea of a non-monetary balance sheet. I did it for myself, just weeks after having done it for some financial planning, and found it to me one of the most valuable tools through the course in helping me to identify self (along with the word clustering qualities exercise). When I see how I have spent time and resources to create and shape my life, a clear pattern of values and gaps emerges. When I look at the balance sheet and ask how it expresses my Work, it is clear that some significant things will need to change. And, instead of feeling overwhelmed or discouraged about that (like I think I would have 11 weeks ago), I feel energized, awake.
Re. Everest, I will hold my comments for the class this evening as I “am” Scott Fisher tonight. Clearly, he never took this class!
Be ordinary: this Live-In threw me off a bit. I grew up in culture where being humble and "ordinary" was a norm and then I moved to US where they teach you from early on to be unique and best at everything! Where competition and expectations are so high being ordinary doesn't get you anywhere. This behavior is trending everywhere: in advertising, technology, media, workplace. Lets take a job interview for an example. One of the interviewing questions that keeps coming up is: "Why should I hire you? What makes you special, better than the other guy?" We are constantly being pushed to compete with one another instead of focusing on uniqueness of each individual and combining our strengths together.
ReplyDeleteBeing "ordinary" these days isn't easy and it should be promoted by parents and leaders everywhere.
We live in a culture where being "ordinary" is not celebrated. There's constant competition wherever we go and thus each of us always need to extraordinary/stand out of the crowd. I prefer the word "authentic". What's authentic to oneself can be ordinary to that person but in many ways extraordinary to others. We need to have the guts to be authentic not only with ourselves but also in front of others.
ReplyDeleteLast week's "Strength I See In You" activity seemed to have a powerful effect. On one hand, it allowed each of us to use our essence to see and appreciated those around us. It seem to make us all feel more connected to one another, highlighting the togetherness of the human condition. At the same time, receiving the praises of strength that others picked up on seemed to fight against the negative effects of the VOJ. I felt that there were personal qualities that I had lost sight of years back, due to my own critical inner voice of judgement. Reading through the strengths later on, inspired me to focus more on my internal essence.
ReplyDelete"Be Ordinary" Live-With: I tried out the "Examine Your Relationship With Money" activity. At first, when simply thinking about myself in relation to my financial goals, even though things are going well, I felt my mind tighten up, with a general hum of anxiety and dissonance. However, when looking at myself in terms of the factors that my essence values (e.g. my ability to connect with others, intellect, health, etc.) and how to could re-focus on those values, I immediately felt this warm burst of inspiration. Also, interestingly money's place in all of it seemed to be much more clear--a basic level of financial security (just enough so that I wouldn't have to continuously think about survival) is all that I really need to put that anxiety aside and focus on the things that really matter.
Hope everyone had a great thanksgiving weekend!
ReplyDeleteAbout the exercise we made last class, I can say it was rally interesting and I felt "connected" to the other persons in the team, the environent feels different when you're trying to look just for the good things. Besides that, i liked the fact that, persons that don't know you well enought, discovered strenghts in you by just listening a part of your experience.
About the live with, I prefer the word "authentic", since it feels more like give "freedom" to your inner essence. I tried out the "seek no approval". Maybe this is something i've been doing some time ago, the difference is that now i'm aware about it. I used to try really hard to please the people around me and do what was expected of me, Results?? I was tired, stressed out because I just couldn't find a way to please everyone. No matter ehat you do, it seems that always will be someone who don't agree with you. So, now I think you get better results when you just tried your best, do ehat you think and feel is the right thing to do, this way you'll be pushing yourself to make it better, somehow people will noticed and you'll feel in peace with yourself.
About the case of steve jobs, I think the key qualities of a leader are vision, passion and effort. Despite his style of leadership, Jobs has this elements, a clear vision that guide, passion for everything related to his vision, and in consequence was a hardworker who make things happened. Lot of People followed him, followed and still follow his ideas, regardless the style he used to lead.