Do you lead with data or are you led by data?

Do you lead with data rather than letting the data lead you? Take this quick test. Answer yes or no to the following statements.

• When I receive a report, the first thing I do is scan through all of the data to see what the report is telling me
• I first collect data and then determine what analysis to perform and what questions to answer.
• My presentations/papers are full of charts, graphs, and tables
• I pass along data and fact as I receive them in order to avoid introducing my bias or subjectivity.
• I diligently read all of the reports that I receive.
• I use standard, corporate reports to make decisions and take actions

If you answered "yes" to more than three you may be letting data lead you. As a result, you might not be as effective as you think.

Leaders who are led by data fall into some common traps:

• Thinking they are making objective decisions - no matter how hard we try our brain filters and distorts information
• Having the data lead them to the opposite decision that is needed
• Trying to ignore/remove their bias - it can’t be done. The trick is to learn how to change where and when it is used
• Seeking and collecting “all” of the data available– Less data will often provide a better answer than more data (what matters is that you are looking at the right data)

Good leaders understand their business and the story that is unfolding within it. They combine that understanding with data to create a more complete picture. However, they know that data is just one of many inputs they use to make decisions and take actions.

Here are a few tips for ensuring that you are leading with data:

1. Always use a question or hypothesis to guide your search. Don't look at data blindly.

2. Build your own reports. Most corporate reports are created by someone whose job is to make reports not run your business. Those reports are often generic and not geared toward the decisions and actions you must take.

3. Interpret and recommend. Don't just pass along data. People can't make decisions from facts. Figure out what it means and share that. The closer you get to passing along a recommendation or interpretation, the faster you move to decisions and actions.

4. Remember the big picture. Any data you look at is just a piece of the full story. Instead of looking at the data in isolation, figure out how it ties to the bigger story of your business.

5. Get comfortable with reasonable and factual conclusions. There is no such thing as an absolute, "right" set of data. You can always find more. Instead ensure that you've asked the right questions and that your data leads to a logical solution. If it does, vet it with others but don't keep searching for more data. You'll never stop.

6. Harness your bias but keep it in check. Use your bias to generate questions rather than determine answers. Let the data confirm or refute those questions.

A new contract with America

Today, Toyota follows in the footsteps of many major corporations in the past couple years. Its executives have been called to Capitol Hill to account for the way they run their business.

Despite all of the gridlock that we've been hearing about in Washington, such hearings are a model of bipartisanship. It seems like any time there is an opportunity to dig into someone else's business, Congress is ready to work together. After all, calling executives in and "holding them accountable" in a public forum is a great way to create the illusion that Congress is helping the American people. And, while we are all glued to our televisions listening to the latest round of reprimands and arm-chair management, perhaps we'll forget the nation's business which continues to flounder.

But what makes Congress believe that they are competent and qualified to judge any one's business? After all, if any executive ran his or her organization with the level of dysfunction, lack of regard for customers, self-interest, and lack of results as is currently displayed by our government officials, not only would they be immediately booted out by their shareholders, they too would be called in for a hearing.

So, why are there no hearings for the government? Many would rightly argue that the government is accountable to the people and their "hearing" comes each election cycle. Yet, that doesn't happen for many reasons. So perhaps the entire system is broken in that our elected officials don't do their job of effectively running our country and our citizens certainly are not doing their job of holding those officials accountable.

So, I think it's time for a new Contract with America - one that creates better focus and accountability for members of Congress and hopefully begins to break down some of the barriers of representative democracy.

Here are my recommendations:

1. Each year Congress will publicly lay out a legislative agenda with specific laws, and policies that will be established in the coming year. If a certain percentage of those goals are not met within that year, any member of Congress who is up for election in that year cannot run.
2. Congress and the President will, on a quarterly basis, participate in public hearings (similar to corporate analyst calls) where they will have to explain or defend their current progress against their goals. The agenda, questions and focus of these meetings will be driven by the representatives of the public who are running the hearings so that they are focused on what the people want to know and not on what the politicians want to spin.
3. Congress, as an entity and as individuals, must abide by the same laws that they pass for the rest of the country. They cannot exclude themselves (or their states) from legislation or policies to which they will hold the rest of the American people.
4. Congressional operating budgets will be indexed against comparable public and private sector budgets. If the rest of the country has to cut to run its business, so will Congress.
5. Congressional pay will be tied to a balanced scorecard of the nation's prosperity in areas such as GDP growth, employment, health and mortality, education, etc.
6. Congress will refrain from holding hearings on any other business, industry, or organization until, as an entity, it demonstrates that it can run its own business in a competent, sustainable manner.
   

Perhaps if Congress started having to operate in the same manner as the rest of us, they might have an easier time getting in touch with the needs of Americans.

Experts don't always make the best leaders

This is a reposting of an old entry. I think it's relevant to bring back. I continue to see organizations wrestle with the question of how to make their "leaders" into leaders. The answer is simple. Don't try to make someone into something they are not. Promote people into leadership positions based on their ability to lead, not because they are good at their current job.
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How do people get promoted in your organization? While I’ve begun to see a shift, it seems that many organizations still promote people to leadership positions because they are good at their current job.

At first glance, this makes a certain amount of sense. Who wants a low performer leading the organization? However, there is more to leading than just being good at your individual role. Success in a role has little bearing on a person’s ability to make others successful in that role.

In fact, promoting people based on their functional or technical skills alone often creates larger organizational problems.

Needing to maintain “expert” status
People whose position and success are based on their functional or technical skills have a vested interest in holding others back. After all, if their success is based on their expertise alone, anyone who has similar or greater expertise becomes a threat. As a result, these people typically:

• Withhold key information (information is power) from their teams
• Publicly criticize or belittle their people’s work
• Take credit for other people’s work
• Resist new or divergent ideas
• Limit empowerment and development within their groups

Getting too involved in day-to-day activities

Your leaders need to drive the success of your business. This requires the ability to focus, motivate, and enable their people. When the leader’s primary skill is doing the specific task, he or she will often resort to that. Generally this results in the leader’s time being poorly leveraged. These people typically:

• Take over tasks that should be done at a lower level – reducing their availability for management tasks or helping/developing others
• Become bottlenecks as they require input or sign-off on too many decisions/actions
• Slow things down by “adding too much value”* - in other words constantly make changes or tweaks to other people’s work

Losing sight of the big or strategic picture
Often, because these leaders continue to focus on the day to day tasks, they lose sight of the business. Leaders certainly need to know what is going on in their part of the organization. However, much of their value comes from being above the details. Good leaders have a holistic view of all of the work being done. More importantly, good leaders look toward the future to figure out what is next for their teams and the business. Leaders who fall into the “day-to-day” task trap will often:

• Fail to communicate (or even have) a vision for their team and organization
• Struggle to juggle multiple priorities
• Become reactive and tactical in their decision making
• Rethinking leadership

In the age of detailed competency models, career ladders, and certifications, it is hard to avoid the trap of promoting the people based on functional and technical competence. Leadership is not about doing, it is about focusing, coordinating, and enabling the people who are doing.


There are a few things that you can do:

• Build leadership skills into your competency models early on. Don’t wait until someone becomes a leader to find out if they have the right stuff.
• Recognize that leading and doing are two different things. Identify people who can rally and motivate teams. Use succession planning to give these people proper exposure to different parts of the organization. This will help them understand the details of what they manage.
• Create satisfying career paths and rewards for both expertise and management. Don’t build a single career path that provides rewards only for becoming a manager. Find ways to reward people who want to build deep functional and technical expertise.
• Get rid of leaders who can’t lead.
  

Poor leadership is a major cause of attrition, poor business performance, and poor customer service. Leaders who were promoted based on anything other than leadership skills put your organization at risk.




* For an excellent explanation of the dangers of “adding too much value” see Marshall Goldsmith and Mark Reiter’s book, “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There.”