The Question of Leadership

The Big Bang Theory’s Sheldon Cooper on the importance of context

2012-01-30T22:47:00.000-06:00

In the Big Bang Theory episode, “The Herb Garden Germination”, Sheldon Cooper, the brilliant yet socially awkward physicist greets his roommate Leonard who has just arrived home with dinner:

Leonard: Hey

Sheldon: Hey

Leonard: Hope you’re hungry.

Sheldon: Interesting. A friendly sentiment in this country, cruel taunt in the Sudan. It’s a lesson in context.

Sheldon’s simple, off-handed observation provides an important leadership lesson. Context matters. Words, ideas, facts and data have little meaning without proper context.

Yet context is often the first casualty in a world of information overload, tight deadlines, and hectic schedules.

Ironically, most of the time that saved by skipping over the “background” more than gets made up for in rework, confusion, slow decisions, and poor productivity.

It’s not that people won’t do their job without context; they can’t. It’s that simple.

Are you providing enough context to your people? Make these simple changes and you should see your people’s performance increase:

When making a request for information, explain how you intend to use that information.
When passing information along, don’t just say, “FYI”. Explain why you are providing the information and what you’d like them to do with it.
When asking someone to attend a meeting, explain their role in the meeting and what knowledge and experience you’d like them to bring.
When giving out to-dos and tasks, remind people of the outcomes toward which they are working.
When stating a decision, draw a connection to your business strategy and goals.

Adding context doesn’t require a lot of extra time or effort. It simply requires a bit of thought and a desire to make your people more successful.

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Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

Story versus Storytelling

2012-01-19T11:02:00.005-06:00

I often recommend to leaders that their presentations or other communications tell a story. I sometimes get some strange looks and reactions: “I’m just reporting quarterly sales, are you saying that I need to tell a story about how one of our customers bought the products?” or “My boss doesn’t have time for stories, he just wants me to get to the point.”

Such comments demonstrate the confusion between “story”, which is the manner in which a message is structured and “storytelling” which is a form of communication.

Over the past twenty years or so, storytelling has become a staple in leadership communication training. There are many books on how effective leaders use stories to motivate their workforce or create a vision.

Storytelling is about weaving a compelling narrative full of descriptions, details, emotions, and reflections. It can be an effective and useful communication tool. But as with any tool, there are times for which it is best suited and times for which it might not work.

Story, on the other hand, is important regardless of the style of communication you are using. It’s not about what you communicate; it’s about how you communicate.

Story means having a structured, connected, and logical flow to whatever is being communicated. Having a coherent story in your message improves its clarity and impact.

That may sound obvious, but many presentations or reports don’t have that clear simple structure. They simply provide a series of successive facts (e.g., data on performance, lists of key initiatives, strategies, organizational, structures, etc.). While the facts might be related topically, they often aren’t linked conceptually. For example, one slide might be key initiatives followed by quarterly sales, then quarterly expenses. This is just information. There is no story. You aren’t helping the audience see how sales, expenses, and initiatives relate. Nothing would be lost of those three slides were reversed because there is no connection between them.

In a presentation that has a story, the slides are conceptually related. Each slide is a continuation or an elaboration on the prior slide. Or, a new slide might be the conclusion drawn from the prior slide(s).

This isn't about just having an advanced organizer and then a subsequent slide for each of the bullets. That’s still just information. Thinking through how those points interact with, support, and create meaning from one another and making that link clear to your audience is what story is about.

A story-based approach to the sales/expense data might look like this:

Slide 1:
Title: Prior to last quarter, we were experiencing major declines in sales.
Contents: Historical sales data

Slide 2:
Title: Historically, we’ve had great success with direct marketing
Contents: Relationship between direct marketing and sales

Slide 3:
Title: Therefore, we implemented the following initiatives around direct marketing
Content: Initiatives

Slide 4:
Title: To support these initiatives, we had to put more money into personnel costs
Content: Personnel-related expenses showing differences between prior quarters

Slide 5:
Title: This extra investment paid off, however, as we saw a spike in sales
Content: Sales data

You don’t have to put the story text slide's title (although it is a good way to see whether you have a coherent story and flow) but you do need to communicate it. In fact, in most cases, the story is more important than the specific data. Remember data should support the story of how you are running your business, it shouldn't be the story.

Sometimes a presenter has the story in his or her head but doesn’t communicate it. This shifts the burden of creating or finding meaning to the audience. It also increases the likelihood that they might miss your point.

More often than not that story doesn't exist. The slides are just arranged in some topical fashion. The presenter simply drains the facts from each and moves on to the next point. This leaves the audience wondering why the information was being presented in the first place.

Look through your most recent presentation. Is there a clear flow between your slides? Does one logically lead to the next? Here is simple test to see if you have an underlying “story” in your presentation. Re-order the slides (or talking points, if you aren’t using slides) from the body of the presentation. If the presentation still makes sense and does not lose any meaning, you are probably just reporting facts.

You don’t have to tell stories to have a “story” in your communication. But you do need to help your audience clearly see the idea that you are laying out.

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Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com

Learning from our teenagers

2012-01-10T13:17:00.002-06:00

With the election primaries upon us, we hear are hearing a lot about the youth vote and how to appeal to it. Sometimes we may question what our young people are thinking. However, if you listen closely, there is a lot of wisdom in their simple, straight-forward response to you and to life. This entry is a re-posting from several years ago. Listen to your kids - you'll certainly become a better parent. But, they might also help you become a better leader.
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I know that we were supposed to have learned everything we needed to know in Kindergarten. It's hard to argue with sharing, saying "thank you" and playing nice.

However, from a leadership point of view, I think we need to look a little farther down the road. I know teenagers may seem like an unlikely source of business wisdom. However, if you pay attention, their messages are right on. More importantly, they are simple and to the point:

• So what?
• Yeah Mom, I’ll do it later
• No way—I’m not doing that!
• Are we there yet?
• How will I ever use this when I grow up?
• You just don’t know what it’s like for kids today
• Is that it?

Try to bring a little more of that "inner" teenager to work with you. Just leave the iPod at home.

So what?
Great leaders create meaning and purpose for their people. Don't just bark out orders. Help people understand the big picture. People will rally around purpose more than they will a task.

Yeah Mom, I'll do it later
You can’t do everything. Some things matter more than others. Keep the 80/20 rule in mind. Eighty percent of the value you create comes from twenty percent of your effort. Prioritize your work to ensure that you are doing the most important things for yourself and for your organization. Put off those things that are not critical to the organization’s success.

No way - I'm not doing that
Learn to say 'no' and mean it. Protect your time, and more importantly, your team's time. Keep the administrative and busy work to a minimum if you can't eliminate it entirely.

Are we there yet?
Teenagers don’t care about the plane trip, they just want to get to the beach. Your boss and customers are similar. They don’t care about all the stuff you “do”, it is what you accomplish that gets noticed. Stay focused on results--don't just get caught up in activity.

How will I ever use this when I grow up?
Your people's time is valuable. It might be nice for them to learn your company's history during orientation, but it probably won’t help them do their job better. Understand what is keeping your people from performing and focus on that. Keep the "interesting" stuff to a minimum and make it available off-line--if they want to read it.

You don't know what it’s like for kids today
What motivates you might not motivate others. Their goals are probably not the same as yours. Treat each person as individual. Talk to your people directly. Don't rely on your managers and supervisors to give you the scoop. And, don't let the employee survey be your main source of input from your team. Get to know them yourself. The same holds true for your customers.

Is that it?
Your kids want complete solutions. They want the latest smart phone, the apps, the downloads, the leather carrying case, the skins, and the rapid-charger. Give them just one and they'll look at you like your nuts. Your business needs complete solutions too. If a problem is worth solving, it’s worth solving completely. Don’t cut corners or skimp. It is better to have one problem fully solved than five problems partially solved. The partial solutions often breed new problems of their own.

Following the wisdom of a teenager can greatly improve your communication, team effectiveness, and overall impact. Of course, there are probably a few things that your teenagers can learn from you too.

The power of close-ended questions. Sometimes they are ok.

2012-01-02T12:23:00.001-06:00

At some point, in the spirit of collaboration and dialog, leaders were taught that open-ended questions are more effective than close-ended questions. In many instances that is true. Open-ended questions promote dialog and discussion. But, as with any rule, it is important to understand the context and assumptions underlying the rule. Otherwise it is easy to fall into the trap of applying the rule at the wrong time (e.g., “My boss ordered new computers for Joe and I”). I often see leaders rephrase a close-ended question. When I ask why they switched they tell me that good leaders are supposed to ask open-ended questions.

Open-ended questions are more effective if your goal is to understand a process, However, if your goal is to understand an outcome, close-ended questions are far more efficient.

For example, a leader was trying to understand how well a direct mail campaign was working. She asked her people a series of open-ended questions. How were they approaching the campaign? What was working? What areas needed improvement? After thirty minutes she had a very clear understanding of their process. She still didn’t know whether the direct marketing campaign was affecting sales. That required a direct, close-ended question.

Another leader wanted to know if his managers were effective leaders. He asked the manager’s direct reports to describe the manager’s behaviors and actions. As with the other leader, he developed a great understanding of the activities taking place but received no insight on the results of those activities.

Don’t be afraid of close-ended questions when you have a specific, discrete question that you need answered.

Rules of thumb, in any context, can be helpful as long as you understand the context and assumptions underlying those rules. Sometimes a close-ended question is best while other times an open-ended question is needed. Be sure to have multiple tools in your toolbox and learn to use them appropriately.

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Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

Accuracy versus precision

2011-12-20T12:14:00.006-06:00

“You’re on the bus and running a little late for work. In your hurry, you forgot your watch and your cell phone is at the bottom of your briefcase, so you ask the woman next to you what time it is. She glances at her watch, which reads 8:33:46, and replies ‘Eight-thirty.’

Did she lie? Why didn’t she say, ‘Eight thirty-three and forty-six seconds A.M.?’ ”

- How Many Licks?: Or, How to Estimate Damn Near Anything
by Aaron Santos.

Santos’ scenario is a great example of the difference between accuracy and precision. The woman gave an accurate yet imprecise answer. But why do that? She had the more precise data yet she chose not to use it.

The woman would probably determine that you didn’t need that level of precision. Knowing the exact minute or second wasn’t going to change anything. Santos also suggests that she realized that by the time she gave you the more precise answer, it no longer would have been correct. So, she chose a response that provided the best answer to your question based on her assessment of your need.

Often we think of accuracy and precision together. In reality they are quite different attributes of data. They should be treated that way.

Accuracy is the degree to which your data reflect reality. Saying that the time is eight-thirty was accurate. Saying eight o’clock or nine o’clock would be less accurate.

Precision is the level of granularity to which the data are reported. Eight thirty-three is more precise than eight-thirty because it is reporting down to the minute (as opposed to five-minute intervals). Eight thirty-three and forty-six seconds is even more precise.

Accuracy and precision are separate issues. Greater precision does not guarantee greater accuracy. For example, if the woman forgot to adjust her watch for Daylight Savings Time, her statement of eight thirty-three and forty-six seconds would still be precise yet it would be very inaccurate.

Confusing precision with accuracy can be dangerous, yet many leaders fall into this trap. Of course, it’s usually more subtle than a time change. For example, if you asked two people for a report on your quarterly sales and one came back with $150,000 and the other came back with $132,431.53 who would you be more likely to believe? Many people would believe the second person. Our brains tend to have an unwarranted bias toward specificity.

So which is more important - accuracy or precision? Both are important but in different ways. Accuracy is an absolute requirement. You should not be using data that do not reflect reality.

Precision is a bit more complicated. Greater precision isn’t always better. In fact, greater precision can create problems.

Your data should only be as precise as your decision-making. In other words, if changes at the smallest increment in the data don’t change your decision or actions, you don’t need that level of precision. For example, consider the earlier example of the woman on the bus. Changes to the individual minute or second aren’t going to change the man’s behavior. However, suppose that the two weren’t on the bus but were waiting at the bus stop. In that case, knowing the time to the exact minute is more important as that could be the difference between catching the bus and missing the bus.

I often encounter reports whose data are too precise. For many of the decisions that leaders have to make, changes in the tens, ones, tenths, or hundredths place don’t make a difference. That’s not to say that such a level of precision is bad. It just depends on context. For an engineer, a scientist, or a surgeon, changes at those levels (or even smaller changes) can have catastrophic results. There is no arbitrary cut-off point at which there is too much precision, it is solely dependent on the types of decisions being made. The right level of precision is the one that informs actions. Too much can cause over-reactions, too little can cause missed opportunities. Of the two ends of the continuum, having too much precision is a more common problem.

Too much precision creates distractions. As measurements become more precise, they become more sensitive to change. The hundredths place is more sensitive than the tenths place, which is more sensitive than the numbers to the left of the decimal point. When numbers change, we have a natural tendency to want to understand the cause of the change. I once spent forty-five minutes with a group of leaders who were trying to explain a .07 change in one of the questions on an employee satisfaction survey. In the end, the discussion was pointless as the change itself didn’t matter and therefore didn’t require any new or different action. Despite that, the team still felt a need to explain the change.

Misaligned levels of precision can cause you to spend a lot of time trying to make sense of changes that don’t matter. That slows down and possible hinders decision-making.

Take a look at your data. Is it accurate in the sense that it truly answers your question? Or, have you possibly fallen into the trap of using highly precise measures that may not actually reflect what is going on. Then, look at the level of precision. Will you alter your decision or actions if the last digit changes? If not, you may want to think about decreasing the level of precision at which you are reporting.

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Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

Your brain isn’t designed to be analytical

2011-12-13T08:00:00.000-06:00

Analytics and data-driven decision making have become major areas of focus for many leaders. In response, leaders are asking for more data and more tools to analyze the data. Yet, despite the increased attention and increased data, decisions don’t always improve.

Data and analytical tools are important. However, they aren’t enough on their own. They aren’t even the most important part of leading with data. Roger Martin, Dean of the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, summarized the issue in his March, 2011 HBR editorial, “Don’t Get Blinded by the Numbers”

“The huge amount of data...encouraged nearly everyone to believe that a firm’s success was driven by the quantity of its data and the ability to model them…

…More and more we’re coming to see that strategy is as much about interpreting as it is about analyzing.”

Martin’s comment reminds us that it’s not just about the numbers. In fact, often leaders have the right data, they just don’t interpret them correctly.

The problem is that our brains aren’t designed to be analytical. That may surprise some people. After all, the brain is often characterized as a sophisticated computer, more powerful than any currently available technology. That part is true - the brain is a phenomenal information processor. But, that’s not the same as being an analytical engine. In fact, in many ways the brain has developed shortcuts to avoid expending a lot of resources on analytics.

To understand this, it is important to remember how and when our “modern” brain developed. The last significant change to the brain and its function occurred about 40,000 years ago. Life was a bit different then. People weren’t trying to make sense of click-through rates or customer ‘experience’ metrics. They certainly weren’t occupied with operating profit, net present value, or shareholder value calculations. Things were much more simple. The brain’s primary focus was to foster survival. Ironically, that still is the focus, but our brains haven’t adapted to differentiate their response to physical threats versus non-physical threats such as your boss, your competitors, or barriers to your business performance.

To keep its owner alive 40,000 ago, the brain got pretty good at recognizing patterns. It also got good at ignoring peripheral stuff in an attempt to stay focused on the important stuff. After all, the amount of data we receive every minute of every day is too overwhelming to process consciously. Therefore, our brains take over the heavy lifting. The brain constantly monitors the environment making you conscious of those things that need your attention while managing the rest behind the scenes.

Forty thousand years ago, this worked pretty well. If you saw your buddy get eaten by a big furry animal, your brain would start to overemphasize big furry animals when determining what to bring to your attention. If that tragic event happened within a week or two, your brain would be especially attuned to it.

However, in our current business environment, the threats are quite different. New threats surface all of the time. Overemphasizing past or highly visible events might not help you navigate the future. As I mentioned in my last post, often what we expect to see, based on past experience or bias, influences the way that we view and interpret data.

For example, when our star performers have less than stellar performance, we don’t always re-adjust our opinion of them. Rather, we tend to find excuses for their failures that enable us to continue to view them as stars. Their colleges on the other end of the spectrum, those we believe to be bad performers, receive the opposite treatment. Their contributions are often downplayed in order to support our contention that they are poor performers.

In his book, The Fifth Discipline, Peter Senge referred to this as the “Ladder of Inference”. The lowest rung on the ladder is observable data. All of the other rungs have to do with the distortions created by your brain in its attempts to make sense of that data. Often, the higher we get on the ladder, our conclusions become further removed from reality.

The bad news is that there is not a lot you can do individually to combat these problems. The good news is that there is a solution. Finding meaning in data should be a collaborative effort. The more eyes, and therefore, experiences, that you put on the data, the more likely you are to get to its real meaning.

Your brain is a miraculous tool for processing information. But, like any tool, when used for an application for which it wasn’t designed, it doesn’t always perform in an optimal manner.

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Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

The Twelve Days of (Leadership) Christmas

2011-12-09T23:00:00.000-06:00

Back by popular demand...and, it really does fit into the tune of the original song!

And, the 11/28 USA Today reported that the price of the actual gifts for the twelve days of Christmas are up 4.4% to $101,119 based on the annual Christmas Price Index compiled by PNC Wealth Management.

The list below is still free so take advantage of it!

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On the first day of Christmas my leader gave to me
expectations stated clearly

On the second day of Christmas my leader gave to me
two engaging tasks
and expectations stated clearly

On the third day of Christmas my leader gave to me
three stretch goals
two engaging tasks
and expectations stated clearly

On the fourth day of Christmas my leader gave to me
four encouraging words
three stretch goals
two engaging tasks
and expectations stated clearly

On the fifth day of Christmas my leader gave to me
five books to read
four encouraging words
three stretch goals
two engaging tasks
and expectations stated clearly

On the sixth day of Christmas my leader gave to me
six focused outcomes
five books to read
four encouraging words
three stretch goals
two engaging tasks
and expectations stated clearly

On the seventh day of Christmas my leader gave to me
seven bits of feedback
six focused outcomes
five books to read
four encouraging words
three stretch goals
two engaging tasks
and expectations stated clearly

On the eighth day of Christmas my leader gave to me
eight new ideas
seven bits of feedback
six focused outcomes
five books to read
four encouraging words
three stretch goals
two engaging tasks
and expectations stated clearly

On the ninth day of Christmas my leader gave to me
nine fewer meetings
eight new ideas
seven bits of feedback
six focused outcomes
five books to read
four encouraging words
three stretch goals
two engaging tasks
and expectations stated clearly

On the tenth day of Christmas my leader gave to me
ten minutes daily
nine fewer meetings
eight new ideas
seven bits of feedback
six focused outcomes
five books to read
four encouraging words
three stretch goals
two engaging tasks
and expectations stated clearly

On the eleventh day of Christmas my leader gave to me
eleven introductions
ten minutes daily
nine fewer meetings
eight new ideas
seven bits of feedback
six focused outcomes
five books to read
four encouraging words
three stretch goals
two engaging tasks
and expectations stated clearly

On the twelfth day of Christmas my leader gave to me
twelve monthly “sit-downs”
eleven introductions
ten minutes daily
nine fewer meetings
eight new ideas
seven bits of feedback
six focused outcomes
five books to read
four encouraging words
three stretch goals
two engaging tasks
and expectations stated clearly

And, unlike the real gifts in the twelve days of Christmas gifts, most of these are free!!!

Happy Holidays.

Believing is seeing

2011-11-22T08:21:00.001-06:00

You might be thinking that I got the title backward. Isn’t the old expression “seeing isbelieving”? Maybe so, but it’s notaccurate. The reality is that very oftenour experience and expectations have a greater impact on how we viewinformation than the other way around.

For example, which lottery ticket has a greater chance ofwinning?

2, 5,16,18, 27, 36

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Statistically, both have the same chance as every numberhas an equal probability of being chosen. Was that a surprise? For some itmight have been; others already knew the answer. But let’s take it one stepfurther. Suppose that I was holding each ticket and told you that you couldonly take one. Which would you choose? Most people when asked this question take the first ticket. Even those whocome into the exercise with an understanding of the statistics tend to makethat choice.

People tell me that they’ve never seen the numbers1,2,3,4,5,6 before (or any consecutive set of winning numbers). Despite knowing the statistical answer, thefact that we haven’t experienced a consecutive number causes to reshape ourview of the data and conclude that it is less likely. As it turns out, no one has ever seen 2, 5,16, 18, 27, or 36 before either but that’s not as obvious so we discard thatfact when thinking through the issue. Believing is seeing - what we have seen or expect to see changes what andhow we perceive the information in front of us.

Las Vegas exploits this phenomenon to lull gamblers into afalse sense of security. The electronic displaynext to a roulette table shows the numbers that have been spun recently. As with the lottery, every number on aroulette wheel has an equal chance of winning. Each spin is independent. If thenumber five comes up six times in a row it still has the same chance of comingup on the seventh spin as does any other number. But our brains trick us – when was the lasttime you saw the same number come up seven times in a row? The casinos make us think they are helping usby providing all of this extra data. Inreality, they are exploiting the fact that believing is seeing. The data isn’t helping the gambler make abetter bet, it’s causing him or her to make a higher bet by (falsely) increasingthe gambler’s sense of confidence.

Another classic example of the believing is seeingphenomenon is Roger Shephard’s table illusion. Look at the two tables in the picture.

Measure the length and width of each one. They are the same. Yet, even after you verify this you stillwon’t be able to make yourself see them as the same. The image hitting your retina and registeringin your brain (e.g., the data) is of two equally sized parallelograms. However,you don’t see with your eyes. You onlytake in data with them. Your brain combinesthat visual data with your past experience to create the image that you “see”. Everyone has experienced perspective. Things in the distance look smaller thanthings that are closer. When you look at the Shephard illusion, your brain istrying to reconcile the data and experience. And, as is often the case, it is allowing your experience literally to shapeyour view of reality – believing is seeing.

Finally, in his book “How we decide”, Jonah Lehrerdescribes how this phenomenon resulted in a group of rats outperforming a groupof Yale students in an experiment.

In the experiment, researchers randomly placed food on oneside of a T-shaped maze. While theindividual placement was random, the experiment was designed so that the foodwould be placed on the left side 60% of the time. The rats quickly learned the trick andstarted going to the left thus achieving a 60% success rate overall. The students didn’t fare as well. They only found the food 52% of thetime. The problem was that the studentswere convinced that there was a pattern and used that “knowledge” in theirpredictions. But as Lehrer pointed out,“The problem was that there was nothing to predict; the apparent randomness wasreal.” But believing is seeing. The students believed that there was apattern. Most likely, their brains overemphasized those instances in which theyguessed correctly and under-emphasized when they were wrong. This resulted in them continuing to see apattern that just wasn’t there.

How often does your experience with a person shape the wayyou view their current behavior. When one of the “superstars” on your teamdoesn’t perform up to par, do you re-evaluate your opinion of him or her? Or, do you find yourself looking for reasons(excuses) to explain the poor performance forcing the data to conform to yourexperience.

If two people come late to a meeting, one a high performerand one a low performer do you treat their tardiness the same? Or do you assume that the high performer wasjust really busy while the low performer was slacking off as usual.

Do you over-emphasize events or facts that confirm yourbiases while ignoring those that refute them?

Leaders often tell me that if they could just have theright data in front of them, they’d be able to make good decisions. Yet, I don’t think it’s that simple. The problem isn’t in seeing the rightdata. The problem is in seeing the data (inthe) right (way).

Believing is seeing. Take time to think critically and challenge your assumptions andconclusions about your data. You mightbe surprised at what you find out.

Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates,a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm.

Don’t do what’s asked…do more

2011-11-04T18:35:00.001-05:00

Last year’s Celebrity Apprentice finals pitted Academy Award Winning Actress Marlee Matlin against country singer John Rich.

Both celebrities had strong track records throughout the season. Both showed tremendous leadership, creativity, and results. But when the final curtain went down, John Rich was the winner.

The final competition was to develop a marketing campaign and promotional event for Seven Up Retro. Even though the task was focused on promoting Seven Up, Rich continued to ask his guests for donations to his charity (all contestants on Celebrity Apprentice play for a charity of their choosing). He raised $275,000 the night of the Seven Up Retro promotional event. Trump seemed impressed and asked Matlin for her reaction. Matlin argued that it shouldn’t have an impact on Trump’s final decision because the task wasn’t to raise funds, it was to run a promotion. She also argued that she raised far more than $275,000 when she was project manager during the actual fund-raising task several weeks prior (in fact Matlin’s project raised more money than all prior Celebrity Apprentice Fund-Raisers combined).

I have a lot of respect for Marlee Matlin and thought she did a great job all season. However, I believe that her response to Trump knocked her out of contention to win.

At the time, Trump said that Rich’s fund-raising would not play a role in his final decision but I have a hard time believing that. Does Donald Trump want people who simply follow his directions and do their assigned tasks (albeit well)? Or, would he rather have a person who, in the context of completing a task, finds additional opportunities to create value and reach his goals?

Of all of the success that John Rich had throughout the season, his actions in the final task firmly established him as a leader. Throughout the season he stated that his main goal was to raise money for his charity, St. Jude’s hospital. He never took his eye off the goal. Regardless of the task ahead of him, he found a way to move closer to that goal.

I often hear leaders complain that they could have achieved a different or better result if they had been given the chance. In my workshops, leaders who fall short in activities will often shift the blame to me saying that my instructions didn’t specifically tell them to do X or Y (of course, the instructions never say that they CAN’T do X or Y).

That’s not what leadership is about. A good leader knows what he or she wants to accomplish and figures out how to make it happen, regardless of what was specifically asked of him or her.

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Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

Hold people accountable for their decisions only

2011-10-23T15:23:00.001-05:00

Imagine this scenario. You’ve been given a sales target by your boss. You have three direct reports. You tell each one where you’d like them to focus and set appropriate targets. All three leaders exceed their targets but your department misses its overall target. What rating do you give them on their performance review – fails to meet expectations, meets expectations, or exceeds expectations? This scenario came up during a recent discussion with a leadership group. Half of the group felt that the direct reports didn’t deserve anything above “meets” because the department failed to meet its goals. The other half felt that the direct reports deserved an “exceeds” rating since they exceeded the targets given to them and that the supervisor deserved a “does not meet” since he or she chose the wrong areas in which to focus.I tend to side with the second group. Departments don’t miss goals, people do. In this case the leader was accountable for the overall department’s goal His or her team was accountable for their assigned piece. Rolling the three direct reports into the department’s success creates an unfair and unrealistic level of accountability.You can’t hold people accountable for your decisions or the decisions of others. You should only hold them accountable for their own decisions and actions.I see this problem outside of the business world in the field of education. Teachers often have little input into the focus, curriculum, or policies of their school, yet are held accountable for the quality of learning in their classroom. Teachers should be accountable for their students’ achievement, but they should also be allowed to make the decisions as to how to best foster that achievement. The same is true of leaders and business decisions and results. It's not fair to tell someone to do something and then penalize them because it wasn't the right thing to do.A second area of misalignment in decision making and accountability often comes between corporate and business-facing functions of a company. This misalignment is a bit more tricky due to the often competing goals of the two parts of the business.Leaders in corporate departments need to look out for the welfare of the organization as a whole. Leaders in a specific business unit, while remembering they are part of a larger entity, are usually held accountable for their specific area's results. Therein lies the problem.For example, consider a procurement director who creates a preferred vendor program (in order to reduce costs). Such a director might successfully lobby to require all leaders in the organization to only use vendors in the program. If preferred vendor usage increases and vendors costs decrease, the procurement director is rightfully rewarded. However, what if the new vendor program excludes a vendor (or set of vendors) who are uniquely qualified to help one of the business units and that unit's performance slips? Does the procurement director, whose program excluded these critical vendors get held accountable? No, he or she is rewarded. The business unit's leader is penalized because he or she is accountable for the performance of the unit. Corporate policy is important, but it's unfair to hold someone accountable for actions that were dictated by someone who is accountable to a different set of goals and expectations.The last misalignment between decision making and accountability comes with data. Often departments that gather, process, and report data are not the departments that actually use the data. Standard reports while easier and more efficient for the reporting group aren’t always more effective for the leader who is trying to make a decision. Yet that second group of leaders are held accountable for the quality of decisions made using the standard reports. I’m often surprised at how hard it is for a front-line leader to get the data that he or she needs to run the business. Someone in a data department is making the decision about what data that leader “needs”, what data the leader can use, and the format in which that leader will receive it. There are important legal, ethical, and social reasons to safeguard certain data in an organization. However, when that safeguarding is so aggressive that it squelches any meaningful use of the data, the value of having the data in the first places ceases to exist. If you find yourself in the position of telling someone else what information, people, or resources he or she needs or what actions or investments he or she should be making, stop and step back. Ask yourself whether you will be held accountable if this leader’s performance slips in response to your requirement. If the answer is “yes”, continue on, you have every right to be involved. If the answer is “no”, reconsider your requests or actions. Is there a way to get your need met while enabling the other leader to make the actual decisions for which he or she will be held accountable?All leaders need to take time to assess the alignment between decisions and accountability. In an ideal world, people at all levels would only be held accountable for their decisions and actions. In a practical world, that can’t always happen. But, as leaders we can be more deliberate about whether we hold people accountable for executing our decisions and how far we step into other people’s business when we tell them what they need, when they need it, and what they have to do with it.Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm.

Do you have number sense?

2011-10-12T22:14:00.001-05:00

In the “Good Cop, Bad Dog” episode of Modern Family, Gloria Pritchett (Sofia Vergara) brings home an aspiring but somewhat naïve entrepreneur named Guillermo (Lin-Manuel Miranda). She wants her husband Jay (Ed O’Neill), a successful executive, to give Guillermo some business advice. Their conversation begins like this:

Guillermo: Are you aware that last year Americans spent $40 billion on dog training?

Jay: Well, that’s not true

Guillermo: I was surprised as you are

Jay: No you were surprised because it’s not true

Guillermo: What is this multi-billion dollar industry missing?

Jay Pritchett: Multi-billion dollars

Guillermo: I have devised a revolutionary way to communicate . . .

Jay has number sense. He isn’t an expert in dog training nor is that his business. Yet, he has a broad enough understanding of business to know that Guillermo’s claims don’t make sense.

Recently, on ABC’s World News, Dianne Sawyer stated, “as of tonight, it [The Occupy Wall Street Movement] has spread to more than 250 American cities, more than a thousand countries -- every continent but Antarctica.” (October 10, 2011)

Some people, upon hearing that statement were probably impressed by the movement’s growth and support.

Critics of Sawyer and the movement were quick to jump on her error. Her statement reflected a number that is five times greater than the total number of countries in the entire world.

It’s unlikely that Diane Sawyer believes that there are that many countries. She was probably rushed and possibly reading from a cue card. But, someone gave her that number. Unlike Jay Pritchett, that person didn’t apply simple number sense to determine whether the data seemed reasonable. And Sawyer, for whatever reason, didn’t do a quick reality check on the fact she was reporting.

Number sense sits at the intersection of business acumen and critical thinking.

In the case of Sawyer’s comment, you don’t have to be a geography expert to realize something is wrong with her number. Some simple logic would cast suspicion.

· Sawyer's statement excluded Antarctica leaving just six continents to house one thousand countries.

· The remaining six continents would each need to have around 166 countries on average.

· Even if you don't know much about the other continents, you probably know that your continent has far fewer than 166 countries. Therefore, the remaining five would have to average MORE than 166 countries each to make up for yours.

· Without knowing specifics, you probably also have some ballpark guesses about other continents either those closest to you or those really big ones with relatively few countries such as North America and Australia.

· That leaves an even higher requirement for the few remaining continents that you know little about.

It quickly becomes clear that one thousand is an outrageous number. That thought process was probably even more elaborate than most people would need.

That’s an application of number sense. It’s not about knowing detailed numbers. It’s about having a few general numbers/facts on hand and the ability to use them to reason through a problem.

Successful leaders have good number sense. They can tell if the size of a projected market for their product seems reasonable. They can quickly think through the bottom line impact of small changes in their business model.

As a leader, part of your business acumen development should focus on number sense. By getting familiar with some basic facts and using those facts to vet the claims that you hear you’ll be able quickly to discern good data from data that isn’t credible.

Here are some facts that would probably create a good foundation for your number sense:

General

What is the population of your country?

What is the population of the countries in which you do business? About what percent are adults versus children?

What is the population of the world (currently approx. 6.97 billion people)

What is the GDP of your country?

How many households are in your country?

How many people are in your country’s workforce?

Business

What is the size of your company’s customer base?

What is the size of your industry’s customer base?

How many of each of your products are sold in a given year?

How many employees do you have in your company?

What are your company’s annual revenues?

Do you need to look up all the details to know if a fact or figure seems reasonable, especially one that might not be specific to your job, role, or business? If so, it might be time to brush up on your number sense.

Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

When is enough, enough?

2011-10-04T10:00:00.000-05:00

How much analysis is enough? You can always find more data, more questions, and more procedures that can be applied to data. It can be daunting. It can also lead to “analysis paralysis,” which seems to be the main concern of the leaders with whom I work.

Five simple criteria will help you assess the thoroughness of your analysis. These aren’t rocket science but they will help create some diligence and structure to your analysis.

You’ve probably done a thorough analysis if:

· You’ve answered your question

· You’ve used multiple, disparate, and distinct sources

· The data are consistent –there is low variability

· The result makes sense and can be explained easily

· You’ve found the exception (there always is one)

You’ve answered your question

This might seem obvious. But it’s probably the biggest mistake on the list. Too often, we jump into the data without clearly defining (or without defining at all) the question we are trying to answer. We just start reading the reports, left to right, top to bottom.

Before you jump into the data, figure out what question you are trying to answer. Then figure out the criteria (or sub-questions) that will help you answer that question. Now, go answer those questions. When you are done, you’re done.

But how do you ensure that you haven’t missed an important sub-question? The answer is easy – talk to people before jumping into the data. Find out if they agree with the model that you’ve laid out (question and sub-questions). Ask if there are other questions that you need to answer.

More importantly, ask the person to whom you will be presenting the data. That will help you avoid doing unnecessary analysis and will help ensure that you don’t repeatedly go back to the drawing board answering additional questions. It also improves your chances of gaining buy-in on your findings since you already know what that person is looking for.

You’ve used multiple, disparate, and distinct sources

The two most important words here are disparate and distinct. Using sources that share the same beliefs or agenda isn’t much better than using just one source. For example, using only environmental organizations as sources of data on global warming might not give you a fully credible view. Mix your sources. Often opposing groups use similar data for their analysis. What’s different is their interpretation of that data. If two opposing parties use the same data, it is probably pretty credible. If their data is different, keep searching until you find some common facts upon which both agree. If you can’t, try to find some additional sources that might be more objective in the first place. A current example of this is our national debt. Most politicians seem to agree on the size of the debt. That number is pretty safe. There is huge disagreement on how much the debt will be reduced by various proposed initiatives. Therefore, that data is probably more suspect. The Congressional Budget Office was established to provide an impartial quantification of budgetary information. On the issue of savings, they are probably a better source than the spokesperson for either political party.

The data are consistent

I monitor my credit score on a monthly basis. The three agencies never match. But, they are consistent. All three paint the same picture of me for creditors. If they varied widely, that would be a problem. Keep looking at the data until it begins to converge. It doesn’t have to match, but if the data is telling three different stories, you need to get some clarity.

The result makes sense and can be explained easily

If you have to take a lot of exotic twists and turns to build your argument, be suspicious. One of the many reasons cited for the financial crises of the past several years is that financial instruments and analyses became too complicated to understand. Clarity and simplicity are both results of clear thinking and analysis. Keep working until your argument is clear, concise, and easily understood.

You’ve found the exception

If all of your data fully supports your conclusion, you might be suffering from “confirmation bias”. Confirmation bias is the result of only seeking information and data that support your view. Even the best solutions don’t work every time. If you’ve looked hard enough to find the exceptions, you’ve probably done a thorough analysis.

There is always more data and more questions. However, if you’ve been diligent in your analysis, you can be confident that your conclusions will hold up. They might not always be right, and there might be something that you missed, but you and your analysis will still be credible.

Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

Best Practices are Stupid!

2011-09-29T00:01:00.004-05:00

In their book, Hard Facts, Dangerous Half Truths, and Total Nonsense: Profiting from Evidence-based Management, Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton make an interesting observation about best practices:

…a pair of fundamental problems render casual benchmarking ineffective. The first is that people copy the most visible, obvious, and frequently least important practices…. The second problem is that companies often have different strategies, different competitive environments, and different business models—all of which make what they need to do to be successful different from what others are doing. Something that helps one organization can damage another. This is true particularly for companies that borrow practices from other industries, but often is true for organizations even within the same industry.” (emphasis added)

So if success depends on being different why do so many companies spend so much time, effort, and money trying to identify and implement other companies' best practices? Perhaps it’s because they don’t know what else to do.

Until now.

My friend and innovation guru, Steve Shapiro has just released his fifth book on innovation, “Best Practices are Stupid: 40 Ways to Out-Innovate the Competition”. Steve takes Pfeffer and Sutton’s argument one step further. How can you beat your competition if you are implementing their practices? Best practices might bring you up to par with everyone else, but they aren’t going to put you ahead. If you want to get ahead, you need to, as Shapiro states in the title, “Out-Innovate the Competition”.

Steve’s new book follows closely in the tradition of his prior books. He makes complicated ideas easy to understand, challenges conventional wisdom, packages his ideas in easy to digest nuggets, and along the way tells some great stories.

If you are just looking to catch up with your competition, Steve’s book may not be for you. But, if you are looking to leap ahead and become the organization to which everyone else aspires, then I strongly recommend that you order “Best Practices Are Stupid” today.

Data-driven targets

2011-09-19T18:09:00.000-05:00

How much data do you collect and analyze to determine whether you are hitting your targets? Many of the organizations with whom I work spend considerable amounts of time gathering and reporting performance data. Leaders pour over reports in an attempt to ensure that the data is accurate and complete. Some even spend so much time analyzing data that they never get to a decision.

Ironically, despite all of the effort put in to tracking progress against targets, there is often little data or analysis used to set those targets in the first place.

One organization with whom I worked had a customer satisfaction target of 83.75 (out of 100). I asked them why it was 83.75. Why not 83 or 84? Was there some data that said that 83.75 was the level at which they optimized their return on their investments in customer experience. Was 83.75 the point of diminishing return where it would start to cost more to improve satisfaction than they’d recover in sales? Of course not. The target was set based on the prior year’s result of 83.15. Management wanted to do better and 83.75 seemed better (the word “seems” is generally a red flag that you’ve moved out of the realm of data). They had no data as to whether it was attainable inside or outside of their organization or what impact a .6 increase might have. They just wanted a number that was higher than the prior year. But higher isn’t always better. Sometimes the incremental cost to improve on a metric doesn’t yield a proportional return. Yet, I often find leaders who set targets based on an arbitrary increase or decrease from their prior year’s performance. Simply using last year’s data as a baseline is not being data-driven. Being data-driven means that there is clear, factual evidence that hitting your targets will provide the outcomes that you desire.

Many years ago, the organization that administered our employee engagement survey sent us two interesting benchmark charts. The first showed the level of employee engagement for those companies with the most highly engaged employees. The second showed the level of engagement for the highest performing companies (from a business performance perspective). The two charts were quite different. The companies with the most engaged employees weren’t necessarily the companies with the highest business performance. The higher performing companies did tend to have highly engaged employees and there is an increasing body of research supporting that. However, they don’t need to have the most engaged employees. There is a point at which increases in engagement no longer make a difference (from a business performance perspective).

My boss made the wise decision to target our engagement at the levels of high performing companies rather than the most engaged companies. This is an example of a data-driven target. He used the data to determine which target best met his goal. His goal wasn’t to be on the list of organizations with the most employee engagement. His goal was to improve business performance. In doing so, he prevented us from over investing and over-optimizing our metric.

Unfortunately, when targets are set with little to no data or analysis, people misuse and misunderstand them. Either they don’t get taken seriously (e.g., “It doesn’t matter that we missed it, it was unrealistic to start with”) or they are taken too seriously or misapplied (e.g., “Let’s see if we can beat the target by 50%).

The second problem might seem counter-intuitive. What’s wrong with beating a target? If you want $100 in sales and you make $200, isn’t your company doing better? That depends. If you had to sell the second $100 of merchandise at a loss, in order to get the sale, then exceeding the target hasn’t helped.

Good targets should have meaning. They are a guide as to where you want to be. If they are truly based in data, then the goal should be to hit them or get as close as possible to them (just like a bulls-eye in darts) not exceed them. Exceeding a data-driven target could be an indication that some other part of the business is being sub-optimized.

A few hints that your targets might not be data driven:

· The precision of the metric is at a greater level of detail than your ability to perceive a difference in performance. (e.g., satisfaction targets that are expressed into the tenths or hundredths place or revenue/cost targets that are expressed to single dollar or cents place).

· They are the same for disparate groups or business areas

· They are based solely on an increase or decrease of the prior year’s performance

· They don’t have an upper or lower limit

Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

Don’t forget to use data on the front and back end too

2011-09-09T11:12:00.004-05:00

I was recently asked to review a presentation with proposed recommendations for addressing customer satisfaction issues. The person giving the presentation asked me to ensure that he was presenting his case in a data-driven manner.

To his credit, he did a great job of laying out the problem using data. He showed that every business unit was struggling to hit customer satisfaction targets (as opposed to it being an isolated problem) and that their slippage was not an anomaly but part of a clear downward trend. He also had strong data that showed that the root cause of the problem had to do with a lack of engagement among staff. His recommendations focused on a set of initiatives to boost employee engagement. Overall it was a reasonable report that made sense and seemed credible.

But his report was incomplete. His data only supported the middle of his argument - that there was a customer satisfaction problem (and its causes). He overlooked providing data on the front and back end.

Supporting your context statements (front-end)

I often see presentations that make broad assertions on the front end (e.g., “Changes in the economy are forcing us to rethink the way we go to market” or “Absenteeism is a major driver of poor productivity in our department”) without any evidence. It’s as if people treat these contextual remarks as throw-away statements that are used to ease people into the presentation. But contextual statements are important. They set the premise upon which an argument will be built.

Proving that there are changes in the economy doesn’t automatically mean that your company has to rethink the way it does business. Showing a high level of absenteeism, by itself, does not prove that you have a productivity problem (or that your productivity problem is due to the absenteeism). Both assertions require data that demonstrate that these situations (change and absenteeism) drive an undesired outcome.

In some cases, like with absenteeism, providing data might seem like overkill. After all, doesn’t everyone know that absenteeism hurts business? That’s a risky premise. Too often such wide-sweeping generalizations are used without proper due diligence. I’m surprised at how many leaders dig a mile deep questioning the data on how the business is performing but take these sweeping, introductory comments at face value.

Supporting your recommendations (back-end)

I’m not sure if people just run out of steam by the time they finish an analysis, but for some reason recommendations often aren’t supported by data.

For example, suppose that one of the root causes of the engagement problem is that employees do not feel that their contributions are recognized. A common recommendation in such a case is some type of “instant recognition” program. Such programs allow leaders to provide ad-hoc monetary or other types of rewards in the moment as opposed to through formal performance and compensation processes.

On the surface, that sounds like a data-driven recommendation. The data says that engagement is a problem. The root cause is recognition and therefore, the solution is a recognition program. But from a data-driven perspective it’s missing something. What evidence is there that the instant recognition program will solve the problem? Sure, it’s supposed to. It may be designed to. But will it?

Why would the managers do this? Has there been success with other ad-hoc programs in the past? Are managers incented and do they have the band-width to take on such a program? Is this the type of recognition that employees want? Are there some leaders or departments who already do similar things with success? Is there data from outside the organization that shows that such programs work in other places? Are those other places similar enough from a structure, culture, etc. standpoint to use as a benchmark?

Of course, we can never know for sure if a recommendation will solve a problem. But, we should at least have some evidence that it has a chance. As you can see, when speculating about a recommendation, sometimes the data aren’t as robust or “hard” as those describing the problem. However, that doesn’t mean they should be ignored. Every recommendation should have some evidence as to why you believe it will work. Otherwise, why did you select it in the first place?

Being data-driven throughout the entire analysis process

In my work over the past few years, I’ve been impressed with how leaders are becoming more sophisticated at using data. More seem to be willing to roll up their sleeves and dig into the numbers. However, there is an opportunity for many leaders to expand their view. Data shouldn’t just support the problem, it needs to support the context in which we think the problem exists and the recommendations for resolving that problem.

Take a look at your presentations. Do you provide data to support the assertions that you make in the introduction? Do you provide evidence as to why you think your recommendations will work? If not, you may need to do some more digging.

Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

Leading with Data Competencies – Business Acumen

2011-08-30T17:03:00.000-05:00

Is a pre-tax profit margin of 7% good? Be careful before you answer. It’s not as obvious as it might seem. The answer is - it depends.

For WalMart, whose 2011 first-quarter pre-tax profit margin was 5.5%[1], 7% would be welcomed news. However, for Nordstrom, whose first-quarter 2011 pre-tax profit margin was 10.5%[2], 7% would be a disappointment. Numbers and data have no meaning without context.

Given that Nordstrom’s profit margin is nearly double that of WalMart, who’s making more money?

It’s not even close. WalMart comes out on top. Does that surprise you? If it does, you may be confusing profit and profit margin. The first is an absolute number, the second is a relative number. Walmart makes less profit on every dollar of sales. However, their sales were almost fifty times greater than Nordstrom. As a result, WalMart’s first quarter profits were almost one and a half time greater than Nordstrom’s sales.

Does this mean that one company is better than the other? Not at all. Each company has its own model, value proposition, and way of doing business. Without understanding what those are, it’s impossible to make effective decisions and take actions on data.

This is the essence of Business Acumen. Having business acumen means understanding the content and context of business in general, and of your business in particular.

Business Acumen is a hot topic. Increasingly, I see it appearing on more leadership and general skills competency models. However, while there is strong consensus that it is needed, there seems to be less consensus about what it looks like. In some leadership models, Business Acumen simply means knowing what’s currently going on inside and outside of the business. In other models, it is a more formal, MBA-like foundation in the art and science of business. To be effective at leading with data, leaders need a broad understanding of business. I divide this into three categories:

· General business understanding

· Understanding your industry

· Understanding your company

Within each of these categories, leaders need content knowledge (what things are and how they work) and context knowledge (what is currently happening in this area). Content is relatively static. It can be learned once (and might need an occasional tune-up). Context, on the other hand, is dynamic and requires on-going attention.

This holistic model of business acumen most effectively positions leaders to make sense of, interpret, and act upon data.

The remainder of this essay outlines key considerations for each area of this business acumen model.

General business understanding

Many leaders are running parts of a business not because they know a lot about business but rather because they know a lot about their particular process or function. That’s a good starting point, but it’s not enough to make good data-driven business decisions.

A content-based understanding of business understanding the mechanics of how business work:

· What are the parts of a business?

· How do businesses make money?

· What are the general processes and functions of a business and what do they do?

· How are businesses organized (corporations, partnerships, co-ops/mutual companies) and what are the implications of those structures on the way the company is run?

· How do businesses keep track of and use money (basic accounting and finance)?

· What are the standard business reports? (e.g., income statement, balance sheet, etc.) How do they work? What information do they provide? What decisions and actions do each type of report support?

Contextual business understanding involves knowing how businesses are changing, new techniques for running businesses, and the macro-economic, social, technical, and political dynamics that influence the way businesses operate.

Once a leader understands how businesses work in general, he or she is ready to think about how those principles apply within their industry.

Understanding the industry

A content-based understanding of an industry involves knowing how the industry, as a whole, functions:

· What are the different ways that companies in this industry go to market (e.g., high volume, low margin or low volume, high margin)?

· Does the industry tend to have a lot of collaboration or competition among its members? Is the industry heavily regulated?

· Does the industry focus on business-to-business or business-to-consumer (or both)?

· How do companies in this industry make money?

· What are the different types of value propositions that companies in this industry bring to the market?

· Which functions and processes tend to be strategic/market facing and which tend to be support functions?

· What are the best practices for the various functions and processes associated with this industry?

A contextual understanding of the industry involves knowing what is currently happening among the players in the industry.

· Who are the key players in the industry?

· What innovations or “game changers” are emerging?

· What new trends exist in supplier or customer behavior?

· What key plays are different companies making?

· How will pending or new legislation affect the industry?

· Is the industry in a growth, mature, or declining state?

· What innovations or practices from other industries can be adapted to this industry?

Maintaining contextual knowledge of the industry requires staying abreast of what is happening outside of the organization. It requires attending conferences, keeping up with the news, and exploring other industries. In many cases, the payoff won’t be immediate or directly applicable to the leader’s day-to-day role. As a result, many leaders make contextual knowledge of their industry a lower priority.

Each business within an industry operates in a unique way. That’s why the final and possibly most important type of business acumen is knowledge of your own company.

Understanding the company

Companies have their own specific value proposition, business model, and ways of doing business. Some emphasize quality and service while others might emphasize price and availability. Some might outsource most of their functions while others might do everything in-house.

Understanding how your company works is critical for leading with data. Too often, leaders fall into the trap of pulling a “page” out of a successful company’s “playbook”. Robert I. Sutton and Jeffrey Pfeffer describe this problem in their book, Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense: Profiting from Evidence-based Management

“The problem lies with the way that benchmarking is usually practiced: it is far too “casual.” The logic behind what works at top performers, why it works, and what will work elsewhere is barely unraveled, resulting in mindless imitation.

There are four different perspectives that a good leader has with regard to his or her company.

Functional

· What are the key functions in the organization?

· What is the role of the function?

· For what outcomes is the function responsible?

Process

· How do information (data) and physical materials move through the organization?

· How does the company determine what products and services to provide?

· How does it get people interested in those products and services?

· How does it create and deliver those products and services?

· How does it manage, track, and control all of those processes and services?

Financial

· How does money move through the organization?

· How is a customer’s dollar translated into profit/loss or shareholder value?

· What are the company’s greatest expenses?

Economic

· How does the company fit into the broader economy?

· With what other industries does it interface?

· Who are its direct and indirect competitors?

· How do different market forces impact it?

A contextual understanding of the company involves knowing what is happening inside and outside of the company across those four content-based dimensions.

· What are the current goals, challenges, and initiatives?

· What types of threats exist from the outside?

Contextual understanding requires a leader to keep up to date with information that might not directly relate to his or her job but is essential to the company’s success. Often this information is treated as “nice to know” and cast aside while the leader focuses on the day-to-day minutia of his or her department.

In order to lead with data, a leader must first understand the “story” of his or her business, the industry in which the company operates, and the external economic, political, and social forces that are influencing the way businesses run. Without that understanding, the leader has little to add to the numbers on the page.

Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm and is the co-author of The Brain Advantage: Become a More Effective Business Leader Using the Latest Brain Research. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

[1] Forbes.com, http://finapps.forbes.com/finapps/jsp/finance/compinfo/Ratios.jsp?tkr=jwn

[2] Forbes.com, http://finapps.forbes.com/finapps/jsp/finance/compinfo/Ratios.jsp?tkr=jwn

Leading with data competencies – Leadership Courage

2011-08-25T17:26:00.000-05:00

For time and the world do not stand still. Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.

John F. Kennedy

Be willing to make decisions. That's the most important quality in a good leader.

General George S. Patton

Looking ahead and making decisions. Those are among the most important things that good leaders do. But, both are risky. Both require that you lay your experience, perspective, and judgment on the line. And your experience, perspective, and judgment might be wrong. That’s scary. That’s why Leadership Courage is an essential element of Leading with Data.

The past and present are safe
Too often leaders focus on using data to report current events rather than resolve future issues. It’s easy to talk about the present. There is very little personal risk. But past and present data don’t generally provide insight. Sure, they provide information. But information isn’t enough to create change. Change requires interpretation and speculation. Gökce Sargut and Rita Gunther McGrath make this point in their September, 2011 Harvard Business Review article, “Learning to Live with Complexity” when talking about the use of “lagging” (backward facing) data and “leading” (forward looking) data:

If the bulk of your information is in the lagging bucket, that’s a warning sign. Basing decisions mainly on lagging indicators is essentially betting that the future will be like the past. At least some of your information should be in the leading bucket. This information will be fuzzy and subjective by definition: The future hasn’t happened yet. But without it, you’re apt to be blindsided by change.

It’s ok to speculate
For some reason, speculation has gotten a bad rap. That’s probably because the term has become interchangeable with “guessing”. Speculation is not guessing. It’s not random or irresponsible. It is what separates good leaders from the rest of us.

I recently worked with a leader who wouldn’t make any statements that he couldn’t conclusively prove with data. This limited him to only talking about things that already happened. For example, this leader had a rock-solid case that the company’s sales force was ineffective and was inconsistent in their application of the sales processes (which most people probably already knew). His leadership didn’t need more data on the problem. They needed a solution. And, no matter how much data you have, recommendations are always speculative. Because this leader refused to speculate, his meetings and conversations never moved the organization forward. He had a well-documented root-cause analysis, but it didn’t provide a solution. Ironically, his assumption that sales would improve if they addressed the process inconsistency was speculation. He only had data that the problem existed. He had no proof that fixing it would change anything. Staying in the present doesn’t prevent speculation. It only delays it. At some point, you need a solution. All solutions and future actions, even if grounded in data, are speculative. Being scared to speculate means being unable to move forward.

Good leaders move beyond discussion of current events. They interpret those events. They combine them with their experience and project what might happen (or what should happen) in the future.

If you aren’t talking about the future, your organization will repeat its past.

Making decisions
The second critical aspect of leadership courage is making decisions. There are two decisions that leaders should be making on a regular basis:

Assessments of the current situation
Required actions

Surprisingly, many leaders shy away from both. How often do you hear leaders present their current results by simply stating whether they are hitting or missing their targets? That’s safe. Everyone is looking at the same data. There isn’t much risk in saying aloud what everyone else is reading.

Instead of simply stating that the department missed some of its targets (which everyone could see on their own) an individual with leadership courage might say:

Even though we saw a slight dip in performance, we are still in good shape and will end the year strong.
or

Our performance is down but it is primarily due to our leadership team in the Southern region. We are going to bring in some new leaders to turn things around. At this point, we don’t believe that we need to make changes outside of that region.

While these statements appear simple, they provide two things that a rehash of the data doesn’t: 1) an opinion of the implications of the data and 2) a proposed action.

Assessments and actions drive business forward. But they require courage. As soon as you move away from the data and start interpreting it, you might be wrong. You might disagree with your boss. Or, you might ruffle some feathers. Leaders who worry about such things will often just opt to pass along the facts. Are you willing to take a stand? Do you talk in terms of assessment and action or data and facts? If you are sticking to the facts, you may be playing it safe. You also may be stalling progress.

Of course, just with speculation, assessment and actions must be based on data and not desire or hopes. Leadership Courage isn’t about manipulating or ignoring data to make a point. Leadership Courage is about being confident in the conclusions you’ve drawn and the process you used to draw those conclusions. In fact, individuals with the most leadership courage put all of the data on the table, even those that contradict their opinion.

Leading with data requires the courage to take a stand, develop a point of view, and recommend actions. None of those is certain and all are risky. Leaders who step up to the challenge and take the risks will be the ones who help drive their business forward.

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Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

Leading with Data Competencies – Critical Thinking

2011-08-17T00:47:00.000-05:00

These days, you probably spend a lot of time looking at and thinking about data. However, due to the vast amount of data that you encounter, you may not be thinking about that data critically. This might put you in a reactive mode, making knee-jerk or even misguided decisions.

Many of the leaders with whom I work struggle to think critically about their data. They either dismiss it outright (e.g., “Our data is never credible anyway”) or accept it at a surface level and try to make decisions from discrete, incomplete facts. But, it’s not entirely their fault.

Our brains aren’t optimized to work with data. In fact, our mind often gets in the way.

A famous example of this is the “Invisible Gorilla” experiment by Dan Simons and Chris Chabris (If you haven’t experienced this experiment, click on the link and play the video). The experiment shows how we can miss information that is right in front of us. At the other end of the spectrum, Roger Shephard created an illusion, “Turning the Tables”. In this illusion, you actually see something that isn’t there – a difference in the size of two equally sized parallelograms.

These two examples counter the common myth that the main barrier to good decision making is having the right data in front of you. Good data is important. But often the data is there, it's just being misinterpreted.

Instead, a good leader must have the ability to think critically about what he or she is seeing. Critical thinking isn’t the same as analytical thinking or problem solving. It’s easy to fall into the trap of doing either without thinking critically.

Critical thinking is thinking about what and how you are thinking. It’s a type of reasoning through which a person challenges his or her own understanding, beliefs, attitudes, and interpretations as well as those of others. What makes critical thinking difficult is that it requires acknowledging an element of uncertainty to our judgments. The result is continual scrutiny of a topic by questioning its validity. This doesn’t mean that you should fall into “analysis paralysis”. But it does mean that you should look beyond the first reasonable answer to find the most legitimate answer.

Leaders who just take data at face value often miss the important insight hidden deep within the context surrounding that piece of data.

What is your data telling you?

One organization’s customer service survey asked customers if they received a follow-up call after service was rendered. The company had a target of 80% follow-ups. The results from the survey looked like this:

Most of the leaders to whom I show this data come to two conclusions:

1) The company, in general, should put more effort into making follow-up calls

2) Departments G, D, C, and J, in particular, need to step up their follow-up call activity.

Sound reasonable? It might be, but it also might be totally wrong.

A common critical thinking error is taking a metric’s name or a report’s column heading too literally. Therefore, a good first critical question to ask is what specifically the data represent.

In this case, you might think that answer is obvious – it’s the percentage of follow-up calls being made. But that’s not quite correct.

Remember, these data come from responses on the customer satisfaction survey. Therefore, they are a measure of the number of customers who reported receiving a follow-up call, not the number of calls placed. Any calls made after the customer took the survey are not included. Or, suppose that customers define a follow-up only as a call in which they actually spoke with someone. Voicemail messages would also be discounted.

Telling managers to step up the number of calls might result in confused looks. Their staff might be following up 100% of the time. However, they might just be leaving messages or making the calls after the surveys are completed.

Does it matter?

Suppose that the leader determines that his or her people are not adequately making follow-up calls. At that point, does it make sense to put more resources into improving the numbers? After all, they aren’t hitting their target. But, a critical look at the data might tell a different story.

Before committing resources to increasing follow-up calls, it makes sense to challenge that assumption that in every area follow-up calls have a positive impact on the business (note: if this has already been proven, there is no need to re-create the wheel. However, often practices are adopted because they seem reasonable as opposed to having been proven effective). Otherwise, you might be optimizing a metric that doesn’t matter.

Generally it’s hard to find an insight with just one discrete fact. Insights come from finding relationships and relationships require at least two pieces of data. The customer satisfaction survey has a lot of data aside from the follow-up call question. The leader also has access to data outside of the survey. So, why limit yourself to drawing conclusions from just one number?

The following table compares the rate of follow-up calls (as reported by the customer) and customer satisfaction. The second column shows the percent of time that customers report receiving a follow-up call after service is rendered. The third column shows the average level of customer satisfaction. (0 is worse, 100 is best).

What does this data tell you? What would you do with it?

At face value, the data seem to be pretty clear – more follow-up calls leads to more satisfaction. Or do they?

Confusing correlation and causality is another common and dangerous critical thinking mistake. This often happens because our brains are wired to find connections, even when they might not exist. The leader who jumps to the conclusion that follow-up calls impact satisfaction and therefore advocates for more follow-up calls is falling into this trap.

Instead, the leader needs to challenge that natural assumption of causality. He or she can do this by asking two critical questions about the nature of the relationship:

a) Do follow-up calls impact satisfaction, or

b) Are follow-up calls just one of many things that high-performing departments do?

A quick and simple test can answer the question. Instead of just comparing the number of follow-ups to the level of satisfaction, the leader can compare satisfaction in those people who receive calls and those who do not. If there is a difference, then there is causal relationship. If there isn’t a difference, then it is just a simple correlation. The following tables show these two different scenarios. The second column in each table shows the average satisfaction level among those who did not report receiving calls. The third column shows the average satisfaction level among those who did receive calls. The final column shows the average overall satisfaction for the department.

Scenario 1: Causal Relationship

In this scenario, there is evidence that follow-up calls impact satisfaction. Therefore, putting more resources into making follow-up calls is probably a good idea. But, that might not always be the case. The next scenario would provide the same high-level results (overall relationship between follow-up calls and satisfaction). However, it tells a very different story.

Scenario 2: Simple Correlation

In this case, while there is a correlation between follow-up calls and satisfaction, there is no causal relationship. Increasing follow-up calls would have little impact on the business (other than the negative impact of wasting resources that could be put on higher impact activities). In fact, according to this data, increasing follow-up calls in departments C, F, and I could actually have a negative impact on the business (although slight). A better response would be to monitor calls in those departments to find out why they might be making customers less satisfied. Note the use of the word “might”. This is another opportunity to think critically and not jump to the conclusion that the calls are reason for the lower satisfaction.

You can do all of the thinking and testing described in this essay in a matter of minutes. It doesn’t take long or require a lot of additional analysis to think about data more critically. It just takes discipline, practice, and a different mindset.

You are probably already asking questions when looking at your data. Critical thinking just changes some of those questions. It also requires an understanding of your business and your metrics. If you find yourself trying to make decisions off of your high level reports, take a step back. Learn to ask critical questions to ensure that you understand what the data is telling you. Ask enough questions so that you don’t see things that aren’t there or miss things that are.

Having good data is important. But understanding that data and being able to question it and find insights is more important.

Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

Developing leaders who “lead” with data

2011-08-09T15:52:00.001-05:00

This entry is the first in a series of four on developing leaders who lead with data.

Organizations are scrambling to improve their people’s ability to use data to lead their business better. But many are focusing on the wrong thing. The problem is that they often focus on the data part rather than the leading part. Roger Martin, Dean of the University of Toronto Rotman School of Management, summarized the problem in his March, 2011 HBR column, "Don’t get blinded by the numbers”:

“Over the past couple of decades this management-by-numbers game has gained currency. The huge amount of data captured by IT and the growing sophistication of econometric modeling encouraged nearly everyone to believe that a firm’s success was driven by the quantity of its data and the ability to model them…More and more we’re coming to see that strategy is as much about interpreting as it is about analyzing. This kind of approach requires completely new abilities. The successful strategists of the future will have a holistic, empathetic understanding of customers and be able to convert somewhat murky insights into a creative business models...”

Course in Six Sigma and business statistics provide an important foundation. But they aren’t enough. It’s not just about the numbers. Leaders need more.

People who lead with data have three key skills or attributes: Critical Thinking, Leadership Courage, and Business Acumen. Placing your bets in these three areas will increase your organization’s success at using data to drive decisions and actions.

Critical Thinking
Leaders often tell me that if they could just get a hold of the right data, they’d be able to make the right decisions. Data and facts make leaders credible; they don’t necessarily make their insights valuable. Too many leaders look at a number and attempt to jump into action. The problem is that the insight generally isn’t sitting within a number on a page. The insight requires, to use Roger Martin’s term, some interpretation.

Current neuroscience research has found that our unconscious minds often squish, squash, re-arrange, and re-configure data many times before we actually become aware of it. “Seeing is believing” just isn’t true. More often than not, “Believing is seeing”. Your experiences, thoughts, expectations, and memories often have a greater influence on how you view the data than data has on your thoughts and experiences.

Given these issues, a good leader must have the ability to think critically about what he or she is seeing. Is it really what it seems to be? Is it somehow being distorted? Is there more to the story than meets the eye? Leaders who just take data at face value often miss important insights. Those insights tend to be hidden deep within the context surrounding that piece of data.

Leadership Courage
I once worked on a project to help a client assess their readiness to serve a new market demographic. The data couldn’t be clearer. They were not even close. Yet, no one was willing to put that statement in their final report. They were too concerned that they might be wrong, look bad, or “rock the boat”. So, they passed the data along in a neat little package to their executives. The executives then had to wade through the data to come to the conclusion that everyone else already knew but wouldn’t say.

These leaders weren’t unique. Few leaders are willing to go out on a limb and state their interpretation of the data. There is just too much risk. It’s always easier and safer to pass along facts. It’s also less efficient.

Companies that drive decisions and actions, talk about decisions and actions (not data). They don’t keep passing off the responsibility to make those decisions or recommend those actions.

Business Acumen
There are many reasons that leaders don’t draw conclusions or build a story around their data. However, lack of a thorough understanding of the business is one of greatest contributors.

Many organizations still promote people to leadership positions because of functional or technical ability, not understanding of the business. Often these leaders continue to view their world through the myopic lens of the function or role from which they came. They can report KPIs and process metrics but often don’t fully grasp how those numbers impact the overall goals of the business. The result is that they speak in numbers rather than insights, decisions, or actions.

It’s simply not possible to draw conclusions or insights from data if you don’t deeply understand the business to which that data apply. How can a leader ask questions about correlation and causality, if he or she doesn’t understand the dynamics of the business?

Business acumen comes in three parts: understanding how businesses work in general, understanding your company, and understanding your industry. All three can be further broken into content and context understanding. Content is facts about how something works. Context is what is currently happening relative to those facts.

A good leader is able to add content knowledge and contextual knowledge to data. This enables him or her to tell a compelling story about what is happening in the business and what to do about it.

Leading with data isn’t about numbers

People who “lead” with data don’t actually let data play a leading role in their conversations. Instead, they lead with insights, decisions and actions that are supported by data. If your development programs aren’t building Critical Thinking, Leadership Courage, and Business Acumen, don’t be surprised if all you get are numbers.

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Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

A bird in the hand… why do so many people get worse as they advance in reality TV talent shows?

2011-07-21T20:57:00.002-05:00

This week’s America’s Got Talent featured the second group of twelve from the Top 48 contestants. Most of the acts were pretty underwhelming. A common refrain from the judges was “You were so good, fresh, unique and exciting at your audition. What happened?”

I think that what happened might have been something that happens in organizations all of the time. It is illustrated in Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman’s famous study called “The General’s Dilemma”. Here’s the scenario:

Imagine that you are a General and you are surrounded and being overpowered by a superior enemy. If you don’t act, all 600 of your troops will die. You send out two scouts to find a way out.

The first scout tells you that if you take his route, you will most likely save 200 soldiers. The second scout tells you that if you take his route, there is a 1/3 chance that 600 soldiers will be saved and a 2/3 chance that none will be saved. Which route do you choose?

If you are like most people (about 80%), you would probably choose the first route. However, what if the choices looked like this:

The first scout tells you that if you take his route, you will most likely lose 400 soldiers. The second scout tells you that if you take his route, there is a 1/3 chance that no soldiers will die and a 2/3 chance that 600 soldiers will perish.

If you are like most people (about 80%), you would have selected the second route (note: this would work only if you hadn’t already seen the first set of choices and made a decision).

If you look closely, you’ll notice that in terms of the number of people surviving and dying, the two scenarios are the same. Yet, depending on how they are presented, people will make opposite choices.

The conclusion of this research is simple and somewhat intuitive; people tend to avoid risk when they have something to lose but are willing to take risks when they have nothing to lose. The way that the scenarios are phrased primes your brain into a nothing or something to lose situation.

So what does this have to do with America’s Got Talent or your organization? The contestants on America’s Got Talent have little to lose during the auditions. They know that their chances of going on to the next round (or winning) are pretty slim (scenario two in the General’s Dilemma). As a result, they tend to take more risks, put on edgier performances, and often wow the judges (at least those with talent). As they move closer to the million dollar prize they begin to have something to lose (scenario one in the General’s Dilemma). As a result, they often start to play it safe and work within their comfort zone. Not surprisingly, the winner of AGT and other talent-related reality shows are often those who overcome this bias and continue to push and take risks even as the stakes get higher.

The same thing happens in organizations. Many large, successful companies often find themselves adopting a more risk-averse stance as they try to protect their position and status. Companies that continue to drive forward and stay on top are the ones who continue to innovate and take chances (e.g., Apple). Those who play it safe in order to protect their lead often find that their competitors, who have much less to lose, catch up to them very quickly with new innovations and ideas.

Finally, this happens with individuals as well. How many “one-hit wonders” has your organization had? These people do some incredible work and have a meteoric rise to the top but then stagnate. Often this is because they are trying to repeat and re-use the ideas that fueled their success. They often miss the point that while the ideas were good, it was their attitude, aggressiveness, and willingness to take a chance that got the result. The idea was just a by-product.

Take a look around your organization and your people. Which scenario best describes your situation? Are you in a good position with a lot to lose if things don’t go well? Or, are you in a position where the sky is the limit? If it’s the former, be careful that you aren’t creating more risk for yourself by avoiding risk in the first place.

Tips for avoiding the risk-averse culture trap:

1) Celebrate success and positive press but don’t make it your goal to obtain them. Instead focus on outcomes that will continue to drive your business forward.

2) Be cautious of arguments against new ideas that focus more on the chance that you’ll lose your position and less on specific things that might go wrong.

3) When you reach the top, redefine your world so that you are back on the bottom and have something to grow into (e.g., If you are the best cookie company in the world, redefine your company’s success relative to the dessert industry).

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Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

Heartbreak Ridge

2011-07-07T22:46:00.000-05:00

The Reelz Channel just replayed on of my favorite leadership movies, Heartbreak Ridge. The movie stars Clint Eastwood as Gunnery Sergeant Tom Highway. Highway is a weathered, war torn Congressional Medal of Honor recipient who is approaching retirement. He is a stereotypical old school Marine. He’s a tough, no-nonsense guy singularly focused on getting his mission done without much regard for political correctness or internal politics. The movie begins with him putting in a request to return to the unit where his career began.

He is assigned a young, cocky reconnaissance platoon whose members are not quite cut from the same cloth as him. They are undisciplined, unmotivated, under-achievers. There is a hint that their only success to date has been running through gunnery sergeants who couldn’t handle them.

The plot isn’t too surprising. Eastwood whips them into shape and they eventually have great success in a rescue mission of college students in Grenada.

Though predictable, the movie does a better job than most at showing the change that the marines go through under this type of leadership.

One of the first encounters between Highway and his platoon is when he wakes them at 4:00am, an hour earlier than he told them the prior day. They quickly realize that their lives have changed and they are in “hell”. They start offering varying levels of resistance to him.

Shortly after, the team confronts Highway when he orders them to fall out for morning drills. Highway looks confused until “Swede”, a gigantic, muscle-bound Marine, who just got out of the brig (apparently for fighting, possibly even with the prior Gunnery Sargent) steps out from behind the group. The team informs Highway that he’s no longer calling the shots. Swede takes a swing at Highway and the rest is history. Highway blocks the shot, drops Swede to his knees and knocks him out with one punch. The rest of the team immediately falls out. The movie continues with Highway’s tough training and over the top tactics and the team’s hope that this is all just a bad dream from which they will soon wake up.

A key turning point occurs when the team is on a drill against another platoon. They are supposed to serve as a target for another platoon to hone that team’s “superior” skills. Highway will have nothing to do with it. His job is, in his words, “To keep you men alive.” Highway changes the plan and his team successfully ambushes the other platoon. Shortly after, the recon team beats the same platoon in another war game exercise.

While the team is celebrating in their barracks, one of Highway’s peers arrives. The company commander (a young, cocky major who is trying to run Highway out of the Marines) has sent him. The Major wants statements from the recon team regarding Highway’s questionable training practices. The team refuses despite promises of extra liberty and threats of punishment. The gunnery sergeant says, “Don’t you guys want it to be like the old days with nobody messing with you?” The team leader responds, “It seems like nobody is going to be messing with us now.”

That exchange captures the leadership lesson of the movie. This team thought that they had it good. However, while “good” was perhaps easier, it was unfulfilling. The problem is that they didn’t know any better. As a result, when things got tough, the team was ready to walk. Once they saw that they could reach new heights and accomplish things they never thought possible, their attitudes changed. The old “good” life was no longer acceptable. Now that they had a taste of what “good” really looked like and they wanted more. The hard work was worth it and they were ready for more. They didn’t want to go back.

In many organizations, people are encountering a new reality in the workplace. The old “good” life is gone. They can no longer get by just by doing the minimum and staying out of trouble. There are greater expectations and accountability. They have to work harder than ever just to keep up.

In some organizations, the loss of that “good” life is driving down engagement, satisfaction, and morale. In other organizations, it’s having the opposite effect. The difference often relates to how well leaders show people the results of their hard work. When people start to feel meaning and see success in what they do, they will start to embrace the new “good”. The more they achieve, the more they will want to distance themselves from the old life. If they are just experiencing the pain without seeing the results, they are likely becoming demoralized.

Is your organization going through major change? Have things gotten harder for your people? If so, what are you doing to show them a new and better alternative to the “good life” for which so many of them are longing.

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Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

What leaders can learn from con men

2011-06-29T00:21:00.002-05:00

Con men might seem like an unlikely source of insight for leaders. Certainly, a leader shouldn't be conning and manipulating his or her people. Leaders need to be genuine and transparent in their actions. A leader's job is to help people reach their potential, not exploit their weaknesses.

So why take a lesson from a con man? The answer is simple. While their goals and results are quite different, conning and leading do have something in common. They both require trust. This is where a leader can learn something.

In their book Sleights of Mind: What the Neuroscience of Magic Reveals about Our Everyday Deceptions, authors Stephen L. Macknik, Susana Martinez-Conde and Sandra Blakeslee describe a classic con called “The Pigeon Drop”. The example in their book came from a fellow neuroscientist named Paul Zak who actually fell for the con in his youth.

The con goes like this. A guy comes out of a restroom at store or, in this case, a gas station and tells the cashier that he just found a pearl necklace. A few minutes later, the cashier receives a call from a man saying that he lost the necklace. The man says he is offering a $200 reward. The cashier lets the man know that another customer found the necklace. The caller says he’ll be there in 30 minutes to pick it up. Unfortunately, the man who found the necklace says that he is late for a job interview and can’t wait. He’s in a bind and asks the cashier for help. He offers to give the necklace to the cashier and split the reward. The cashier just has to give the guy $100 and then he can keep the $200 when the owner of the necklace arrives. Of course, the “owner” of the necklace never shows up and the cashier is now out $100.

As you read this story, you might be thinking, “What a chump, I’d never fall for that.” Yet, many people fall for this and similar tricks all the time. In the heat of the moment our reactions are different than when reading about this in the abstract. Con artists are experts at quickly building rapport and trust. That’s why they are so effective. Once they gain your trust, they have you. The rest is easy.

But it's not so easy for leaders. In his September, 2006 HBR article, The Decision to Trust, Robert Hurley cites research showing that 50% of managers don’t trust their leaders. Sadly, that was the most optimistic statistic he provided regarding trust. So why is it that leaders have to work so hard to gain people’s trust while a good con artist can do it in a matter of minutes?

It might be that the leader is too focused on doing things to gain trust. Macknik and his co-authors have an interesting insight in their analysis of the con man’s success. The authors (and Paul Zak) hypothesize that con artists are drugging you (or more accurately, are causing you to drug yourself)! They get your brain to release a hormone, oxytocin, into your system. Oxytocin causes us to feel connected to others. It is released during childbirth and situations in which you are “bonding” with others. Perhaps it is also released when you are being conned.

“The key to a con, says Zak, is not that you trust the con man, but that he shows he trusts you. Con men ply their trade by appearing fragile or needing help, by seeming vulnerable. Because of oxytocin and its effect on other parts of the brain, you feel good when you help others. ‘I need your help’ is a potent stimulus for action. As for the pigeon con, the first hook was Zak’s desire to help the poor guy get this nice gift to his undoubtedly sweet wife. The second hook was the man who wanted to give the necklace back but who was late for his interview. If only Zak could help him get that job. Zak’s oxytocin system was in high gear, urging him to reciprocate the trust he had been shown and to help these people.”

The lesson is simple. Perhaps leaders should spend less time trying to convince people to trust them and more time letting their guard down, soliciting help, and demonstrating that they trust their people.

Hopefully your leadership success isn't based on being a con man. That doesn’t mean that you can’t learn from them. Con men get people to do things that they never dreamt possible. When people get hurt, it’s a crime. Yet when those “impossible” actions bring out people’s potential and help them succeed, it’s leadership.

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Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

Risk-taking versus recklessness

2011-06-24T17:13:00.002-05:00

Leaders are realizing that maintaining the status quo is no longer a sustainable strategy. Many are pondering the question of how to create a culture of people who are more willing to take risks. However, as soon as that desire is expressed, it is almost always qualified. What if this new out of control workforce takes down the business? As long as this qualifier exists, there won’t be many risk-taking organizations. Such concerns come from a flawed view risk and people.

Risk is an inherent and necessary force in any business. Without it there would be no innovation, little progress, and few opportunities. Risk is simply the uncertainty involved in doing an activity. Managing risk is understanding the nature of that uncertainty, the range of possible outcomes, and the implications of each outcome. It also involves assessing the degree to which the organization can handle the negative outcomes (and deciding whether or not to take the action). Finally, managing risk requires that steps are taken to buffer or reduce any potentially negative outcome.

Risk is different from recklessness. Recklessness occurs when the potential outcomes are not considered nor are the proper steps taken to minimize exposure to those problems. Recklessness is about doing things without thinking them through.

Leaders’ fears of organizational demise at the hands of a newly minted “risk taking” culture are often fears of a reckless culture. It’s important to understand the difference.

Leaders who believe that their people will act recklessly if given more latitude don’t trust their workforce. It shouldn’t follow naturally that just because someone can do something he or she will do it indiscriminately (and will do it with disregard for the well-being of the organization). One senior executive said that front-line employees shouldn’t be taught how to think critically or innovate. Her concern was that they would stop listening to their supervisors and just question things all day long. She didn’t trust her people’s judgment to know when to apply their new tools.

If you can’t trust your people with new tools, you probably don’t trust them with their current tools either.

Ritz Carlton’s reputation for high quality service is built on a culture that trusts and empowers its people to make decisions (and take risks). Every employee is empowered to use his or her own judgment to spend up to $2,000 on each guest each day (http://www.baldrige.com/criteria_workforce/world-class-employee-orientation/). Given the number of customers who pass through the Ritz Carlton hotels each day this could quickly bankrupt the company. Yet, it has had the opposite effect. Ritz Carlton’s employees use this policy judiciously along with their other customer service tools. It’s a risk, but their training programs, reward systems, and leadership ensure that their people do not act recklessly.

My son is in the process of learning to drive. Allowing anyone who has never driven a car to get behind the wheel is a risk. Although I have some concerns, my first thought isn’t that he is going to drive off a cliff or cause a major pile-up on the highway. We are taking a risk, but we (and he) are not being reckless. We are careful about the situations in which we let him drive. As his skills and confidence improve, we’ll give him more opportunities. Second, we talk with him about good and bad driving habits. Third, we try our best to model appropriate driving behavior. While none of this guarantees that he won’t have an accident, it does minimize the risks associated with his learning to drive. We also know that he is a responsible kid and we trust him. This doesn’t mean he won’t make mistakes. It does give us confidence that we can handle those mistakes and that they will not be due to reckless behavior.

Having a culture of people who take risks is not a bad thing so long as those people are not reckless. As a leader your job is to give your people the knowledge, tools, and motivation to differentiate the two.

If your first thought is that allowing your people to take risks will lead to chaos and destruction, then either you have the wrong people or they have the wrong leader.

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Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

Why don’t Navy SEALS have team-building retreats?

2011-06-15T13:03:00.000-05:00

I just finished reading Seal Team Six: Memoirs of an Elite Navy Seal Sniper by Howard E. Wasdin and Stephen Templin. Among the many things that struck me about the book was that, although SEALS have to work as an incredibly well integrated team (and trust one another), they don’t do team-building or trust exercises. At least, they don’t do it the way the rest of us do. They learn team-building and trust by being put into situations in which their success is dependent on those things. That’s enough. Team-building, trust, and communication are not topics or concepts that somehow exist outside of their work. They are the foundation of their work.

About the time I was reading the book, I received a request to lead a team-building workshop for the leadership team of a mid-sized organization. I asked what problem they were trying to solve with the workshop. They said they needed to work better as a team. I asked why. Were they not hitting their targets, unable to deliver to their customers, or getting into some type of trouble? No, everything was working. They just thought it was important for their leadership team to work together more effectively (they were a leadership TEAM after all, why would I even question that they needed team building training?)

I run into this problem a lot. Leaders want their people to work together as a team even though, when you look under the surface, their jobs really don’t require it.

So why is it that the groups needing the most team-building and trust appear to focus on it less (at least explicitly)?

I think it comes down to work. SEALS need teamwork and trust otherwise they die. Most of us don’t. Maybe we’ll suffer some inefficiencies, but in the grand scheme, most organizations aren’t structured in a way that requires or encourages team-building and trust. Many organizations even create environments that discourage it.

Before scheduling your next off-site meeting on team-building or trust, take a step back. Is lack of trust a problem or is it merely a symptom of an organization whose goals, processes, structure, and rewards, don’t require it.

If it’s just a symptom of the environment, you have to first change that environment. Ironically once you increase the level of shared goals and interdependency between your people, you’ll probably see a decrease in the amount of time people spend talking about teamwork and trust as external, discrete topics and instead just start making it happen.

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Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

It’s time to derail the FYI train

2011-06-08T21:20:00.000-05:00

At one time or another, we’ve all climbed aboard the FYI train. You receive an email from your boss. The first line of the email says “FYI”. The next line is the beginning of the forwarded email from his or her boss, it also says “FYI”. The FYIs continue back to the original sender of the email. That’s the FYI train.

Most people think that the FYI train is a good thing. They defend the practice by saying that they are helping to cascade information down into the organization. Passing along information is a good thing. However, passing along information without context isn’t.

The president of a company should have a very different reason for sending along an article to his or her vice presidents than a front line manager should have for sending to his or her team. After all, the vice presidents and front line staff have very different views of the organization, are held accountable for significantly different things, and have been engaging in different conversations with their bosses. So why send the exact same message without any guidance?

The most common excuse for not providing context is time. Most leaders don’t think they have any and typing FYI and hitting send is a quick way to get the task done. But is that really the best use of time? If the leader believes that one part of the article supports a recent decision or conversation, why have everyone else read the entire thing (hoping they’ll figure out the connection)? If the president is expecting a response or recommendation based upon the article doesn’t it save time to spell that out?

The problem is that most leaders associate context with detail. The two are different. You can provide context with very little detail and you can provide a lot of detail without any context.

A simple statement of what the recipient should focus on or do with the forwarded email might be sufficient. In some cases, a broader explanation might be necessary if you are trying to relate the contents of the email to something that is currently happening.

Context is important. It’s true that people don’t have a lot of extra time. However, they really don’t have time for accumulating facts and information that serve no purpose. Nothing should be “for your information” anymore. If something triggers you to forward an email to someone else, pass along that detail.

A little context will go a long way at helping people use their time more effectively and, in the end, will save you the time from having to backtrack and explain why you wanted them to look at the information in the first place.

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Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com

Measurement Blindness

2011-05-31T12:36:00.000-05:00

There is an old saying that what you measure is what you get. While generally true, this statement can be a bit misleading. It doesn’t always work the other way around. What you’ve got isn’t always what you measure. In other words, there might be things falling below the radar simply because you aren’t measuring them.

There is a classic example of this in the book Jurassic Park. The island (Jurassic Park) had elaborate tracking systems to keep track of the dinosaurs. For efficiency purposes, the scientists set the systems to stop counting as soon as they reached the expected number of dinosaurs. The scientists believed that the genetically re-created dinosaurs on their island couldn’t reproduce. Therefore, they thought that they only needed to worry about decreases in number.

The story’s complication occurs when an outsider suggests that they increase the number at which the system stops counting. The scientists quickly find out that their assumptions about the dinosaurs’ reproductive abilities were wrong. The dinosaurs are multiplying.

Of course, that’s fiction. Yet, the very same problems occur in real life often with similarly unexpected and damaging results. The Jurassic Park scientists’ bias and assumptions tainted what and how they measured. Sound familiar? What you measure is what you get. That also means that what you measure is what you are looking to get. In his book, Why Smart Executives Fail, Sidney Finkelstein illustrates this problem with regard to Rubbermaid.

For a long period of time after the Great Depression, Rubbermaid was known for excellence in product innovation. By 1993, the company won Fortune Magazine’s “Most Admired Company” distinction. Yet, Rubbermaid crashed shortly after. Product design and innovation gave way to cost, availability, and efficiency. As the industry shifted, they did not. They got what they measured, but they were measuring (or at least focusing on) the wrong thing.

Advances in measurement have also fueled the problem. Techniques such as Lean and Six Sigma have given rise to a new appreciation of data and measurement. Changes in technology allow us to gather millions of data points daily and generate statistics to greater level of precision than ever imaginable. But all of this creates an illusion of understanding, certainty, and control. Six Sigma and Lean are excellent management tools. However, by themselves, they are no more effective at driving your business as a ledger or time and motion study. They are just tools.

The problem is that we now equate precision measurement with valid measurement. The result is that things that can’t be measured precisely are often not measured at all. This problem isn’t new. Paul Krugman, an economist and columnist for the New York Times, describes the problem in his paper, The Fall And Rise Of Development Economics.

“A friend of mine … has written a fascinating paper called "The evolution of European ignorance about Africa." The paper describes how European maps of the African continent evolved from the 15th to the 19th centuries...You might have supposed that the process would have been more or less linear: as European knowledge of the continent advanced, the maps would have shown both increasing accuracy and increasing levels of detail. But that's not what happened. In the 15th century, maps of Africa were, of course, quite inaccurate about distances, coastlines, and so on. They did, however, contain quite a lot of information about the interior, based essentially on second- or third-hand travelers' reports. Thus the maps showed Timbuktu, the River Niger, and so forth…Over time, the art of map making and the quality of information used to make maps got steadily better. The coastline of Africa was first explored…and by the 18th century that coastline was shown in a manner essentially indistinguishable from that of modern maps…On the other hand, the interior emptied out. …In a way, Europeans had become more ignorant about Africa than they had been before. …the improvement in the art of map making raised the standard for what was considered valid data. Second-hand reports of the form "six days south of the end of the desert you encounter a vast river flowing from east to west" were no longer something you would use to draw your map. Only features of the landscape that had been visited by reliable informants equipped with sextants and compasses now qualified.”

In other words, Europeans became blind to those things that they couldn’t measure accurately. So instead of having a rough idea about the location of a river or town, analytical rigor caused them to show nothing at all. Does that make sense? Isn't a rough idea of the location and existence of river better than no knowledge of the river? You'd think so. Yet, I see this "if it can't be measured accurately, let's not measure at all" thinking all the time.

Leaders often dismiss measures that are subjective, qualitative, or anecdotal. Yet sometimes those measures can provide the best information. Ideally most of your measures should be statistically reliable and valid. However, a highly precise, reliable, and valid measure of the wrong thing cannot substitute for a rough measure of the right thing. Spending five minutes talking with your people will give you a much better sense for their level of engagement than any employee engagement study. Asking your customers if they are happy will yield much better information than detailed metrics about call center response time, product quality, or profit margin. Of course, those latter metrics are important too for the specific questions they answer. However, they don’t replace simple understanding.

Don’t get blinded by your measures. Use them to drive decisions and actions. But remember, metrics, in and of themselves, don’t provide value. They must be combined with your understanding of your business and current situation. Some decisions don’t require precision as much as they require understanding of the situation. Being told that it’s cold outside provides enough data know whether to put on a coat. Simple measures can be helpful.

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Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com

Outcomes and over-acting

2011-05-16T08:45:00.001-05:00

This past weekend I had the arduous task of taking apart a wooden play set in my yard. Dismantling the boards and pulling hundreds of nails got me thinking about effort, activity, and outcomes.

At one point, I had to remove the swing hangers. The hangers are long bolts that run through a cross beam and are secured at the top by a nut. There is a metal cover over each of the hangers. Four nails secure the cover. To remove the hanger, you must first remove the cover to access the nut.

As I was prying up the cover, I realized something. I didn’t have to remove all four nails. I simply had to remove two nails and bend it back. My outcome wasn’t to remove the cover - that was an interim step. My outcome was to expose the nut in order to remove it (actually, my outcome was to remove the hanger – removing the nut was the most efficient way to do that).

Removing all four nails would have been over-acting relative to my outcome. In this case, over-acting had little cost other than maybe some nicked fingers and sore muscles. In a work setting over acting can cost time or money - resources that are a lot scarcer these days.

It made me wonder how often we over-act. I see it happen a lot. We lose sight of the outcome and continue to focus on executing the activities associated with it.

Misguided metrics are a major source of over-acting. When metrics are focused solely on activity, it’s no surprise that they generate a lot of activity. Without over-arching outcome measures, activity metrics can easily lead down a path of perpetual motion with little progress.

Bottom-up reporting, diagnosing, and communicating are a second major source of over-acting. Bottom-up means starting with the activity metrics and working your way to the outcome measures. This type of approach probably results from our being used to thinking about our world in a linear, cause-effect manner. We tend to measure, report, and communicate what is happening in the order that it happens. That’s not effective from a management point of view. The first and foremost area of focus should be the outcome. That drives your actions.

Lack of clarity is the third major source of over-acting. Too often, leaders are at a loss to define the end game clearly. Instead, they take the easier route. They define activities that can easily be measured and reported. Sometimes organizations bring me in when they believe they are having a performance problem. My first question is always the same – what outcomes are not being met. I’m amazed at the blank looks I get when I ask that question. The response is usually, “Can’t you just look around and see what is and is not working?” The answer is no. I can look around, that’s easy. But, I can’t tell what is or isn’t working. If the organization is shooting for 4.5 out of 5 on customer satisfaction, then its processes are working if satisfaction is at 4.6. They are broken if satisfaction is at 4.3. Without knowing the end game, the exercise in finding problems also becomes an activity. All people and processes CAN be improved. The question is whether they SHOULD be improved. You can only answer that by understanding what you are trying to achieve.

Take a look around. Talk to your people. Find out how they determine when enough is enough. Is it the completion of an activity or the achievement of an outcome?

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Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

Stop being a mystery writer. Become a prosecutor instead.

2011-05-11T17:38:00.000-05:00

Nothing is more exciting than plowing through a three hundred-page mystery novel waiting with anticipation to find out “who did it”. Unfortunately, that excitement doesn’t translate well to non-fiction. Most executives want answers, not long drawn out sagas. Yet, we often make them wait.

It’s time that we shift our focus. Throw away the detective cap and pipe and put on your pinstriped suit. It’s time to become a prosecutor.

Think about the way a prosecutor lays out the opening argument for his or her case. What’s the first thing they say?

“On June 5, 2010 Mr. Gray entered the music room, picked up a piece of conduit and struck and killed Ms. Goldfinch.” The prosecutor then lays out the case. Story complete. The rest of the trial is where the evidence is presented to support that initial assertion.

But what if prosecutors adopted the way that many of us present information? The opening argument might go something like this.

“On June 5, 2010, Ms. Goldfinch returned home from a day at the track. While reading in her music room, she was beaten with a piece of conduit. Ms. Amber who came by to pick up Ms. Goldfinch for a dinner engagement called the police at 5:32. The police ran their investigation.

They found that the killer entered through the backdoor. The police considered three suspects, Mr. Gray, Col. Relish and Professor Peach. The police followed their standard investigative procedure. They dusted for fingerprints and collected DNA evidence from hair follicles left at the scene.

They then interviewed each of the suspects. Mr. Gray said that he was on a hunting trip during the crime. Professor Peach and Col. Relish said they were together at an awards banquet. The police spoke with one hundred people at the banquet. Forty-five were women and fifty-five were men. Of the men, thirty were between eighteen and thirty-five years of age while the others were all older than thirty-five. Ninety-five percent of the witnesses recalled seeing Professor Peach and Col. Relish. The police then interviewed the individuals with whom Mr. Gray had gone hunting. There were ten in total. Five lived in the city, four in the country, and one wasn't sure. Three of the men were over six feet tall. None of the men could corroborate Mr. Gray’s story.

The police then compared the DNA and fingerprint evidence to samples taken from the three suspects. There was a one-point match against Professor Peach, a three-point match against Col. Relish, and a five-point match against Mr. Gray. The DNA did not match Professor Peach or Col. Relish although our forensic scientists made an interesting discovery. Col. Relish is a carrier of a very rare form of Hepatitis C. Mr. Gray's DNA matched the sample found at the crime scene.

The police also interviewed Ms. Amber regarding each of the men’s relationship with Ms. Goldfinch. Ms. Amber reported that Col. Relish had never met Ms. Goldfinch. She said that Ms. Goldfinch and Prof. Peach had been dating for several years and rumor had it that he was planning to propose to her. She also said that Mr. Gray was Ms. Goldfinch’s college sweetheart who she dumped for a circus clown. She said that on several occasions she heard Mr. Gray swear to get even and ensure that if he couldn’t have her, no one would.

Given that Mr. Gray’s DNA was found at the site, that his alibi didn’t check out, and that he made threats against Ms. Goldfinch, we believe the he is guilty. Oh, by the way, he's also an electrician and has access to conduit.”

That seems a lot less effective doesn’t it? Putting the answer at the end is great for mystery novels. It doesn’t work for business decisions and actions. Lead with the answer and then make your case. Your audience will let you know what additional information they need. It will also help focus your discussion on the decision or action rather than the minutia of the process.

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Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com

Do your performance management processes leave your best leaders on the cutting room floor?

2011-05-03T10:37:00.000-05:00

In their March, 2001 Harvard Business review article “The New Path to the C-Suite”, Boris Groysberg, L. Kevin Kelly, and Bryan MacDonald state that

“Once people reach the C-Suite, technical and functional expertise matters less than leadership skills and a strong grasp of business fundamentals”

Their article goes on to describe the real abilities needed across the spectrum of C-suite executives (CIO, CMO, CFO, CHrO, etc.). Few have to do with the basic functional and technical requirements of their respective disciplines.

Their article made me question current performance management systems. How well are they identifying the people with the best leadership potential?

In many organizations, leadership ability isn’t measured until a person becomes a leader. Prior to that, performance measurement is often focused on detailed competency and performance models associated with functional or technical skills. That means that organizations aren’t moving people into leadership positions based on their ability to lead. This would explain the current leadership crisis that many organization face.

This isn’t to say that among the functional and technical experts there aren’t great leaders. However, it does pose a problem. Those who are just “good” functionally and technically but show great leadership promise might be getting left behind. When was the last time your organization moved an “average” performer into a leadership position? Yet, how often do “top” performers move into leadership and flounder? If your organization defines good, average, and top solely on functional and technical competence, it probably happens a lot.

Perhaps it is time to rethink our performance management and succession planning processes. Leadership ability should be measured and tracked from day one, regardless of level. We need to break down the perceptions that our top leaders come from a subset of our top experts. Your best leaders might be the ones who know how to draw the greatest contribution from those experts.

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Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

Are you constrained by your personal capacity?

2011-04-23T15:14:00.001-05:00

Anyone who has had a prescription filled in the past twenty-years is probably used to dealing with a pharmacy-tech. Most, if not all of a customer’s interaction is with the tech. Most of the entire process of filling the prescription is now done by the tech.

That wasn’t always the case. There was a time when a pharmacist performed the entire process (except perhaps ringing up the transaction). There are many reasons for the change (cost, efficiency) but underlying those reasons was a common root cause – capacity. A typical pharmacist could only fill so many prescriptions per hour. Even the best pharmacists working at peak performance could only deliver marginal performance increases (in relative terms compared to today’s model). The problem was that pharmacists were constrained by their own capacity. At some point, an individual pharmacist couldn’t produce more.

The pharmacy-tech position addresses this problem. The pharmacist’s expertise isn’t needed in every step in filling a prescription. Off-loading the steps that didn’t require that level of expertise allows the pharmacist to better leverage his or her skills. This model allowed the pharmacist to make a greater overall contribution. His or her production capacity is now a function of the number of techs. In other words, if there are three techs, for every hour worked the pharmacist gets three times (or more) production than his or her own capacity. This is where the cost savings comes in since it's cheaper to hire three techs than two additional pharmacists.

I often see new leaders fall into the capacity trap. Prior to becoming a leader these people’s success was often driven by their individual contribution and production. When they become a leader, they continue to try to do a lot of the work themselves. The leader might not trust the new team to get the work done. Other times, they feel they can do it faster than their people. Often, they are frustrated that the people around them aren’t “getting it" and don’t want to waste their time bringing those people up to speed. Sometimes, it’s just easier. Whatever the reason, as soon as this happens, the leader is caught in the capacity trap.

Leaders need to understand that their value doesn’t come from their individual contribution. Those days are over (see my earlier post, Experts Don’t Always Make the Best Leaders). The real value of a leader comes from an ability to maximize the contributions of those around him or her. The leader’s contribution is in his or her vision and direction, not in the execution of that vision. That’s the role of the team.

No leader, no matter how good, can outperform six or seven teams of people. One great leader leveraged through six or seven teams can outperform an entire department.

If you think that you can get more done by executing on your own, think again. You might get each individual project done faster and perhaps a little better. When you line them all up end to end, you’ll find that it takes much longer to deliver than if you were doing them in parallel through your people.

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Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

Reality TV – Lessons to avoid

2011-04-15T08:49:00.000-05:00

Reality TV – Lessons to avoid

As reality television shows winnow down their contestant pools and begin their final stretch to finding a winner, the hosts often start asking the competitors the same question, “Why should you get picked to win?”

In most cases, the answers are the same. The contestants argue that they've worked hard, it’s always been their dream to sing, dance, or run a company, or they can’t think of doing anything else in life.

Recently I asked a group of leaders a similar question, “What value do you bring to the organization?” The answers were surprisingly similar in nature. The leaders talked about what they like to do and how hard the work at doing it.

I don’t doubt either group’s sincerity. They gave good honest answers. The problem is that the answers were inwardly focused.

Too often we focus on what we want or get out of an organization (or from a person) rather than what we have to offer.

If you want to be the next American Idol, America needs to know that you will have their interests at heart and will be the best person to meet those interests. If you want to run one of Donald Trump’s organizations, don’t tell him that it would be a great experience where you can learn a lot. Tell him that you’ll make him money.

If you want your boss to select you for the next high profile role, don’t tell her that you’ll work hard. Tell her that you will get the job done (or that you’ll make it so she can work less).

Somewhere along the line the personalized, “me” culture of consumerism has swept into the workplace. It’s time that we recalibrate.

You wouldn’t buy a product just because the manufacturer worked really hard to produce it or the store worked really hard to sell it. You’d only buy it if it created value for you.

It’s the same for the relationship between you and the organization for which you work. The only difference is, in that scenario, you are the producer and the organization and its customers are the consumers. You exist for them, not the other way around.

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Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

Good evening Clarice – the power of memories

2011-04-04T07:52:00.002-05:00

Do you remember the movie “The Silence of the Lambs”? If so, which character do you remember most? Could it be Clarice Starling or Dr. Hannibal Lecter? If so, you are in good company. Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins won Academy Awards for their portrayals of these two key characters. You probably wouldn't be surprised to find out that Jodie Foster’s character has the most screen time in the movie.

What might surprise you is that Hopkins only had about sixteen minutes of screen time in the nearly two-hour movie. He set a record for the shortest role ever to receive the best actor award. Yet, his character dominates our memories of the movie.

How could Anthony Hopkins leave such a memorable impression in just sixteen minutes? It’s simple, our brains often confuse intensity or novelty with prominence. We tend to over emphasize things that catch our attention.

So how does that translate outside of our movie-going experience? Often it translates to where and how we focus our attention.

I remember once hearing about a major, systemic problem at one organization. Everyone had their own story about how this particular problem created havoc for the organization and its customers. After some digging, we were able to trace every person's story to the same, single incident that occurred several years prior. It wasn’t a systemic problem after all. It turned out to be an anomaly that was burned into the collective psyche of the organization.

We can learn two critical lessons from Hannibal Lecter’s influence on our memories. First, don’t trust your memory or even the collective memory of the organization. Before committing to solving a major problem, make sure that the problem actually exists in the way that everyone recalls it. Second, make every interaction, whether with employees or customers, count. It only took sixteen minutes (13% of the entire movie) for Hannibal Lecter to etch himself into our minds as the greatest villain of all time (according to the American Film Institute). Just think what one bad interaction can do for your or your company’s reputation.

Incidentally, did the title of this entry seem a bit off? Don’t you remember him saying, “Hello Clarice”? That’s another problem with our memories. Sometimes our brain alters our memories based on what it expected rather than what actually occurred. Since most of us tend to greet people with “Hello” rather than “Good evening”, our brains tend to modify the memory. That's why sometimes your memory of what was said during a meeting, might not match what others recall. It could be that you are remembering what you intended to say. Or, perhaps everyone else is remembering what they expected to hear. That's why it is so important to follow up and recap meetings and conversations.

Our brains aren’t optimized to reflect reality. They are optimized to keep us alive. That often means that they alter our memories to create emphasis. Forty-thousand years ago that was probably good for a hunter and gatherer trying to navigate life on the savanna. For people trying to navigate organizational life in the 21st century, it sometimes creates problems.

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Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

Do you know your metrics? The three question test

2011-03-22T10:39:00.002-05:00

How well do you know your metrics? Chances are you know the current values of them (if you don’t, that’s an issue). But, do you really understand what that number is telling you? Here are three simple questions that you should be able to answer for any metric:

In plain language, what does this metric tell you?
What’s its equation?
Is it better for the metric’s value to be a high number or a low number?

In plain language, what does this metric tell you?
Can a company that has always been profitable and continues to be profitable go bankrupt (assuming business remains consistent and there are no unexpected surprises or disasters)? About 80-90% of the leaders to whom I ask this question get it wrong. They say “No, if they are making money they shouldn’t go bankrupt.” As many small businesses learn very quickly, profitability doesn’t mean that you have cash. It just means that the revenues on your books exceed the costs. Cash flow is a measure of how much money is coming into (and going out of) your organization. It is important to understand what a metric is (and is not) telling you.

Sometimes we make assumptions based on the name of the metric. For example, one organization had a “customer satisfaction” metric. Despite its name, it didn’t directly measure customer satisfaction. It measured the organization’s percentile ranking on customer satisfaction. Percentile rankings are relative. If every other organization is great and their organization was good, their percentile ranking would be low. If, on the other hand, every organization was horrible and their organization was just bad, the percentile would have been high. Because they were missing their target, many leaders said that their customer satisfaction wasn’t good. However, they struggled to reconcile this with their actual interactions with customers as many seemed quite pleased. The problem was that they were in a highly customer-centric industry and competition was high.

This metric didn’t measure satisfaction. It measured the number of better choices that customers had when determining where to take their business.

If you can’t explain your metrics in plain, simple language, you might not really understand them. Plain, simple language means that you can explain them without just rehashing their formula. You should be able to tell someone what the metric means to you and your business.

What’s the equation?
Can you write out and explain the formula for your metrics? Do you understand each component? Do you know if the numbers used in the calculation (or the output) are actual values, projected values, planned values, or annualized values? That makes a big difference as well.

Do you know the range of possible values that your metric can take? For example, some organizations like to re-scale survey scores in order to widen the results. One company multiplied satisfaction scores by twenty to convert them from a five point scale to a one hundred-point scale. About 80% of the leaders with whom I spoke though that the final scale was zero to one hundred. That was incorrect - it was twenty to one hundred (since the survey started at one not zero). That makes big difference when your scores are in the 60-80 range.

Most leaders also overstated the impact of changes to that new score. A five-point difference in the final score sounded good until it was converted back to original scale.
Do you understand why the formula is written in a certain way? For example, profitability can be computed using either subtraction or division. But division provides more information as it helps you understand the rate of profitability as opposed to just the absolute amount.

Finally, do you know if your metric is a relative or absolute number? More importantly, if it’s relative, do you know what the metric might NOT be telling you? In the earlier example, the relative customer satisfaction metric masked the actual level of customer satisfaction.

Is it better for the metric’s value to be a high number or a low number?
This one might sound obvious, but some metrics are tricky, especially when they are mixed on a scorecard. I’ve seen cases a metric was lower than its associated targets. The leaders interpreted this as missing the target (since all of their other metrics were designed so that higher numbers were better). Their corrective actions continued to lower the value of the metric. They couldn’t figure out why they weren't “fixing” the problem (when in reality they were over-fixing it). They wasted a lot of unnecessary resources over-optimizing the metric.

Do you understand what levers you can pull to make influence the metric? Do you understand the relationship between positive or negative changes to one of the metric’s components and the metric itself (e.g., if a component goes down, which way does the metric go?)

Every day, leaders use metrics to make decisions and drive actions. However, they often “fly blind” when it comes to actually understanding the metric. If you can’t answer all of these questions for the metrics you use, there is a good chance that you aren’t making the best decisions.

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Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

Data doesn’t tell you WHAT to do just WHERE to do it

2011-03-15T07:45:00.002-05:00

What should you do with unprofitable customers? What about poor performing employees? Would you allow a quality problem to continue? If your sales were steadily dropping in one market, what actions would you take?

Even though I didn’t give you any data, you probably know the answers to these questions. What you don’t know is which customers are not profitable, which employees have performance issues, where the quality problems are occurring or which markets are losing sales. For those questions, you need data.

Leaders often tell me that they cannot make a decision until they see the data. While it’s true that you can’t complete the decision without the data, you can get pretty far down the path.

In fact, you’ll probably make better decisions if you think them through prior to seeing the data. For example, consider rating employee performance. Ideally, you should have a set of criteria in mind for what high, average, and low performance look like. Then it’s simply a matter of comparing individual performance against those criteria to get the result. For example you might get something that looks like this:

However, sometimes that’s not what happens. Perhaps we look at the data and see that our up-an-coming superstar, Jane, is third on the list. We “know” that Jane is a high performer. She just had a tougher assignment than Bill or Karen. Certainly if they ran into the challenges that Jane faced, they wouldn’t have done so well. We shouldn’t penalize Jane because we give her the hard tasks, right? All of this might or might not be true, but it’s the conversation that goes on in our head. We decide that our high performer cut-off should come just after Jane, not after Karen as our original criteria might have suggested.

Then, we see Bob. Poor Bob. He really screwed up a couple of years ago and we haven’t forgotten. Sure, he did a pretty good job. Unlike Jane who caught a bad break, he probably just got lucky. We decide to put the low performer cut off just above him. After all, how can we consider a poor performer like Bob to be “average?” The result is a very different picture of your workforce.

Of course, these kinds of decisions are much more subtle. Often they happen unconsciously as our bias takes over the way we view the data and make our decisions. It does happen and not just with performance decisions.

In his book, “The Logic of Failure: Recognizing and Avoiding Error in Complex Situations”, Dietrich Dörner describes similar errors that contributed to the Chernobyl disaster. The team running the reactor (who turned out to be a group of expert scientists) dismissed the data, alarms, and other warnings. Dörner concluded that:

“The Ukrainian reactor operators were an experienced team of highly respected experts who had just won an award for keeping their reactor on the grid for long periods of uninterrupted service. The great self-confidence of this team was doubtless a contributing factor in the accident. They were no longer operating the reactor analytically but rather ‘intuitively.’ They thought they knew what they were dealing with, and they probably also thought themselves beyond the ‘ridiculous’ safety rules devised for tyro reactor operators, not for a team of experienced professionals.”

The people who devised the safety rules based them on a set of criteria based in science. However, when the scientists filtered the real-time data through their personal experience and biases, they decided to move the lines that delineated when corrective action was needed. The result was one of the worst disasters in history.

I’m not suggesting that we completely ignore our experience. However, there are ways to use that experience constructively. Proactively figuring out what actions you’ll take and the criteria for taking those actions reduces the chance of being influenced by your bias. There will be times when, after seeing the data, you might choose to make an exception. However, in that case, at least you are making the exception consciously.

If you are waiting for your data to tell you what to do, you'll be waiting for a very long time. Your data doesn't "know" about your business, it's just a bunch of facts. What to do is based on your knowledge, experience, and judgment. Your data can only tell you where and when to do it.

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Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

Even the most transactional activities have outcomes

2011-03-07T06:49:00.002-06:00

I’m often asked at what point leaders can stop focusing on outcomes. The argument I hear is that some people's jobs, especially those lowest in the organization, are just about executing tasks.

I disagree. Even the most transactional activities have outcomes – otherwise why bother doing them?

Every task, no matter how small, is done for a purpose. A call center operator’s job isn’t just to complete a call. That transaction should achieve something – it needs to satisfy the customer’s need in a way that is efficient and cost effective to your business. Ideally it should make the customer feel better about your business than before they called. Those are outcomes. How many times have you called a support line for help and hung up feeling no better off (or even worse off) than when you started?

When you don’t explicitly state an outcome your people don’t have clarity on what they are trying to achieve. As a result, they use completion of the task as the measure of success.

These “micro” outcomes are what make or break your business. After all, your “major” outcomes are all built upon the success of each individual transaction and interaction.

If you cannot think of an appropriate outcome for a task or deliverable, stop and take a step back. You might not fully understand why that task is being done or why that deliverable is being created in the first place.

And if you don’t know, neither do your people.

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Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

Want results? Keep two sets of books (legally)!

2011-03-01T19:56:00.000-06:00

We often hear stories of companies that keep two sets of books. One set is used for the government or other regulatory agencies. This one paints of picture of the business that falls within the governing body’s accepted ways of doing business. The other set actually shows what’s going on in the business. That’s the one from which decisions and actions are made. Of course, keeping two sets of books in this way is illegal and not a good idea.

However, lately I’ve been recommending this strategy to the leaders with whom I work. Well, I’m not recommending this exact strategy - there is a slight twist.

Many organizations fall short when it comes to goal settings. Attempts to have “objective” or “quantifiable” goals often lead to statements that are tactical and activity-based. After all, it is much easier to see and prove that you’ve implemented a new process than it is to show that you are actually delivering better results due to that process.

Leaders who attempt to create goals that are truly results oriented fall into two traps:

1) They might not be able to provide an exact metric (or an “acceptable” metric) and are criticized and forced to turn them into activity-based goals (which would have been easier to do in the first place)

2) Their peers all have activity-based goals which are easier to achieve. This puts the leader at a disadvantage at the end of the year when his or her achievements are compared against peers.

The solution - two sets of “books”; the goals that you create for the formal HR process and the goals that you create for yourself to run the business.

The first set is written for your boss, HR, or whoever else is involved in your Performance Management. These goals comply with the standards, style, guidelines, and expectations set forth by the formal process. By aligning with the process, you’ll ensure that you won’t be penalized for trying to achieve real results.

The second set should be the outcome-based changes that you are trying to affect. Your personal measure of success and all of your actions should be driven by achieving these goals. You shouldn’t be satisfied until they are met, regardless of the status of your formal goals.

By staying focused on true outcomes, you’ll achieve three things:

1) You’ll increase your chances of actually impacting the business

2) You’ll still achieve the formal, activity-based goals (assuming that you have to do the activities to get the outcomes). However, the opposite isn’t always true - achieving the activity doesn’t always guarantee the outcome.

3) You’ll set yourself up for long term success. Sure, people who hit their annual activity-based goals win in the short term. However, over time, the people who succeed are the ones who become known for having a real impact on the business. Those short-term, activity-based contributions are soon forgotten along with the person who achieved them.

In an ideal world, there wouldn’t be a need for two sets of goals. Unfortunately, few of us work in an ideal world. Until organizations and leaders truly embrace an outcome focus, you might have to keep a second set of books.

The good news is that, in this case, the second set isn’t only legal, it actually benefits both you and the organization.

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Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

Goal setting: Cascading versus avalanching

2011-02-24T12:16:00.002-06:00

Many leaders use goals to create line of sight between an individual’s work and the broader success of the business.

A problem that I see in many organizations is that while goals are passed from one leader to his or her direct reports, they tend to be “avalanched”.

An avalanched goal is one that doesn’t change as it moves through the organization. For example, a regional vice-president might have a goal of increasing profitability by 13%. He gives his director of sales and director of operations that same goal. Those two people in turn pass the goal along to their various managers who then pass it on to their front line employees.

In the end, the final person with the goal is the one who has no one else to which to pass it. That person is also in the least likely position to fulfill the goal due to his or her scope of responsibility and influence.

Avalanched goals aren’t helpful. They reduce clarity and make it difficult for people to know where to focus. After all, if everyone in the organization has the same goal, despite having different jobs, what are they supposed to do? They are also unfair and demotivating. If a person only controls 1/10th of an outcome, how can he or she be held accountable for that entire outcome? More importantly, they can actually reduce accountability. Each person in the chain holds the person below him or her accountable for meeting the one goal while not attending to it themself. The only person who winds up actively working toward it is that poor low-level employee stuck at the bottom of the avalanche.

An alternative to avalanching is to use cascading goals. Cascading goals are also passed down through the organization. At each level the goal is adapted to reflect the unique contribution that supports the higher-level goal.

The idea of cascading goals isn’t new. What’s happened is that leaders have latched on to the first part (passing the goal down through the organization) while abandoning the second part (modifying the goal to reflect a unique contribution). The result is the avalanche.

The key to creating cascading goals is having a clear understanding of how each successive layer in an organization contributes to the one above it.

Here is a simple example of how the profitability goal mentioned earlier might be cascaded.

Each individual has a specific goal for which they have full control. Their individual area of focus and contribution are clearly laid out. Most importantly, there is clarity around who specifically is accountable for each outcome.

Of course, it is also important to show each person how his or her goal contributes to the broader goals of the organization. This creates line of sight as well as engagement.

This example showed how to cascade just one goal. Leaders should go through this same process for each of his or her goals.

The people who report to you should not have the same goals as you. They should each make contributions that, when taken together, help you achieve your goal(s). Take time to provide each of your people with a clear, focused, and specific goal.

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Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

Best laid plans

2011-02-15T17:16:00.000-06:00

In April, 2002 Yo Yo Ma and Condolezza Rice performed a duet during a ceremony in which Ma was awarded the National Medal of the Arts.

It’s no surprise that one of them was a Humanities major in college and the other a Music major.

What might surprise you though is that Condolezza Rice was the music major (she eventually switched) at Standford and Yo Yo Ma was the Humanities major (he received his degree from Harvard)

Often when I talk with college students I try to get them to worry less about their major and more about their passion. I try to convince them that in all likelihood the job they will have when they turn 30 or 40 is probably one that they didn’t even know existed during their college years (except of course for professions such as medicine or law).

Yet I don’t blame them. When I look at job descriptions for entry level or even senior level positions, I often see the same thing – deep expertise and experience in a given field.

Ironically, I rarely find a high performing, high-level leader whose college major would have landed him or her the job or who has deep and long term experience in the technical or functional requirements of their role. Most are just good leaders with a passion for the work they are doing. That’s pretty much what happened with Condolezza Rice and Yo Yo Ma. Despite their educations, they both followed their passions (and had natural talents within them).

Of course, a leader must be competent. However, the leader doesn’t have to be the smartest person in the room or the most technically or functionally competent person in the room. The leader does need to be the most passionate and persistent one.

Who do you look for when filling a position? The person with passion and talent or the one with the right pedigree?

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Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

The modern day Sisyphus - are your people stuck in an endless loop with no meaning?

2011-02-08T10:37:00.001-06:00

Employee engagement continues to be an elusive outcome in many organizations. A recent Blessing-White study on employee engagement shows that only about 31% of employees in organizations are considered “engaged”.

Organizations have poured considerable time, effort, and money into solving the engagement problem. Yet, there has been little to show for the effort.

In The Upside of Irrationality, Dan Ariely might have found a key to increasing engagement – avoid what he calls the “Sisyphean” condition. Sisyphus was a king from Greek mythology. His punishment in the afterlife was perpetually rolling a stone up a hill. Each time he neared the top, the stone rolled back to the bottom. In other words, Sisyphus’ curse was never to see his work produce any results.

Ariely explored this idea with a simple experiment. He paid two groups of people to build objects (“bionicles”) out of Legos. Each time an individual would finish building, he or she would be offered the chance to build another object for slightly less money than the prior one. The participants could choose to stop whenever they wanted. There was one difference, however. In one group (called the “meaningful” group), once the object was created, it was taken away and a new set of parts was provided. In the other group (the “Sisyphean” group) once the object was completed, it was immediately disassembled in front of the participant (while the participant was working on his or her next object).

So, what was the difference between those people who saw their work undone and those who didn’t?

“Joe and the other participants in the ‘meaningful’ condition built an average of 10.6 Bionicles and received and average of $14.40 for their time. Even after they reached the point where their earnings for each Bionicle were less than a dollar (half of the initial payment), 65 percent of those in the meaningful condition kept on working. In contrast, those in the Sisyphean condition stopped working much sooner. On average, that group built 7.2 Bionicles and earned an average of $11.52. Only 20 percent of the participants in the Sisyphean condition constructed Bionicles when the payment was less than a dollar per robot.”

Incidentally, Ariely also found that in the meaningful group, there was a high correlation between how much someone liked playing with Legos and their output. Yet, in the Sisyphean group, there was no correlation. His experiment effectively sucked passion out of the participants.

In a follow on experiment using a different task, Ariely went one step further. He divided his subjects into three categories:

Those who would get a positive acknowledgment for doing their task
Those who would get no acknowledgment
Those who would get no acknowledgment and, as with the Sisyphean Lego group, would see their work destroyed.

Not surprisingly, the acknowledged group was the most productive (competing the task 9.03 time on average). The Sisyphean group was the least productive at 6.34. However, those in the ignored condition didn’t perform much differently than those in the Sisyphean condition (6.77),. Ariely concluded:

“This experiment taught us that sucking the meaning out of work is surprisingly easy. If you’re a manger who really wants to demotivate your employees, destroy their work in front of their eyes. Or, if you want to be a little subtler about it, just ignore them and their efforts.”

You might be thinking that you don’t literally destroy people’s work in front of them. However, you might be destroying more than you think. As a leader are you guilty of creating Sisyphean conditions for your team?

Does the way you deliver feedback “destroy” their work? Do you overly reshuffle, revise, re-edit, and rethink what they did?
In your desire to add value, do you take out their thoughts and replace them with your own?
Do you allow their work to go unacknowledged so that they never know what came of it?
When assigning a task on a contentious issue, are you mindful of people who have been burned in the past putting in long hours on projects that wound up getting cancelled or deferred by people higher up?
Are your people so far removed from the end user or end customer that they never actually see the impact they have? (creating a ‘line of sight” diagram on a Powerpoint slide doesn’t count)
Do you (or does your organization) require a lot of non-value added administrative work, HR or compliance processes, committees, and other work that takes people away from the work that stirred their passion and attracted them to the job in the first place?

While you might not literally put someone’s work through the shredder, your actions and inactions might be having the same effect.

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Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

Dogmatic expertise

2011-02-03T10:42:00.002-06:00

In his book, Educating the Reflective Practioner, Donald Schon recalls the story of how Bernard Greenhouse, a famous cellist, learned to play while studying under Pablo Casals.

Greenhouse would spend three hours per lesson with Casals. For about an hour of each lesson, Casals would play a phrase and have Greenhouse repeat it. If Greenhouse didn’t repeat it perfectly, Casals would stop him and say, “No, no. Do it this way.” Greenhouse was concerned that this process of mimicry would only turn him into a poor copy of Pablo Casals. Yet, once Greenhouse became an expert at mimicking Casals, Casals did something that surprised him:

“And at that point, when I had been able to accomplish this, he said to me, ‘Fine. Now just sit. Put your cello down and listen to the D-Minor Suite.’ And he played through the piece and changed every bowing and every fingering and every phrasing and all the emphasis within the phrase. I sat there, absolutely with my mouth open, listening to a performance which was heavenly, absolutely beautiful. And when he finished, he turned to me with a broad grin on his face, and he said, ‘Now you’ve learned how to improvise in Bach.’”

Somewhere on the continuum between novice and true expert (i.e., the person who can ‘improvise in Bach’) lies the dogmatic expert.

The dogmatic expert has internalized the rules and processes in his or her area of specialty. He or she can apply those rule better, faster, and deeper than anyone around. Yet, instead of having the freedom that Casals showed when ‘improvising in Bach’, the dogmatic expert becomes trapped in his or her own expertise. He or she lacks the flexibility to adapt to situations where the rules don’t work out perfectly. Instead of using expertise to move people forward, the dogmatic expert often shuts other people down when they don’t follow the process perfectly.

I first encountered dogmatic experts early in my career. I was part of a training and development group. We had people who were “experts” in instructional design processes. They were very good at what they did when they were able to execute their process from start to finish. However, when the client needed something done fast or suggested that they skip a step, the experts often became flustered. They’d dig-in and insist that the process couldn’t be done that way and that the final result wouldn’t be good. The more they dug in, the more the client worked around them. While the experts were explaining why the client’s process wouldn’t work and why their product would fail, the client produced their own training. Then while the experts were compiling their critiques of the course and explaining why it wasn’t very good, the people taking it were learning from it, improving their skills, and giving it high marks.

The real expert was the one who was able to adapt the important design principles to the client’s context. This involved following the spirit of the process and principles without following each step exactly. He improvised within the design process.

Expertise is highly valued in organizations. However, true expertise is the ability to combine what you know with the context around you. The people who are able to improvise within the rules and processes of their discipline are the ones who create value for their companies.

Too often, we try to demonstrate our expertise by showing how other people’s actions aren’t “right”. That’s not what expertise is about. Expertise isn’t about shutting others down. Expertise is helping other’s succeed within their context. It’s about knowing which rules can bend and which must be reinforced.

Where do you sit on the expertise continuum? Do you find yourself stifled when people don’t follow your process to the letter? Are you able to take a less than ideal situation and get the most from it? Or, are you the one who is shutting people down for not doing things the right way?

Dogmatic experts look good on paper but often compromise as much value as they create. Don’t fall into that trap.

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Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

Martin Luther King had much more than a dream

2011-01-17T12:04:00.002-06:00

Today we remember Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., his work, his achievements, and the work that he left behind for the rest of us to finish.

A focal point in nearly every tribute I’ve seen is Dr. King’s “I have a dream” speech. There is no question that his dream was an inspiration. However, Dr. King was much more than a man with a dream. A lot of his contemporaries had dreams as well yet his is the dream we most remember. That is because, in addition to having an idea, Dr. King was a leader and an agent of change.

Many leaders have a vision. Some have the skill to communicate in a way that rallies people’s hearts, hopes, and actions. But for many of those leaders, their dreams are never realized. The speeches and powerpoints give way to the practical realities and challenges of their day to day work. Their dreams become reduced to faded memories of a nice speech.

Dr. King’s success was due to what he did with his dream. He didn’t just speak about it, he acted upon it. He put himself on the front line to bring his dream to reality. He worked side-by-side with the people who he asked to help support that dream. He was an active player. He didn’t wait for someone else to bring his dream to life.

As leaders, we can learn a lot from Dr. King. But I think that his on-the-ground approach to carrying out his vision is a model for all.

After the Powerpoint is turned off and the microphone silenced, where are you? Are you in your office waiting to see what happens or are you marching, arm and arm, with your people?

Dr. King, thank you for your dream.

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Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

Beam me up Scotty – Constraint-driven innovation

2011-01-15T12:21:00.002-06:00

You don’t have to be a Star Trek fan to be familiar with the phrase “Beam me up Scotty.” The creators of Star Trek imagined many far-out future technologies. The transporter is probably one of the most recognizable and famous. Ironically, the transporter wasn’t originally supposed to be used.

According to the 2005 documentary, “How William Shatner Change the World” (business is slow in January, I’ve got a lot of time on my hands), the crew of the Enterprise was supposed to land on the target planet. However, landing scenes required additional sets and props. When it came time to film the first landing sequence, the design shop didn’t have those sets and props ready. The writers had to come up with a different plan. They needed to come up with something that they could do quickly and cheaply. That “plan B”, the transporter, went on to become one of the signature features of the series.

This reminded me of one of my favorite innovation scenes in a movie. This one is also based on space exploration (although this wasn't science fiction, it was real): Apollo 13.

Due to an accident after takeoff, the crew members had to fly the ship from the lunar module rather than the command module.

Because its filters were designed to accommodate two crew members for one and half to two days, they were reaching capacity (since they now had to support three crew members for four days). The carbon dioxide levels in the lunar module were beginning to reach toxic levels.

Ironically, there were plenty of filters in the command module. However, the command module’s filters were square while the lunar module’s filters were round. The ground team had to figure out how to connect the two using only materials that were available on board (e.g., plastic bags, cardboard, and duct tape).

The ground team ultimately met the challenge of “putting a square peg into a round hole” and saved the astronauts.

Putting a square peg into a round hole
(http://er.jsc.nasa.gov/seh/apollo13.html)

Both of these are excellent examples of innovation. Three things make these particular innovations stand out:

Both happened in situations where a high degree of innovation already had occurred: the development of a science-fiction television series and the United States space program.
The initial innovations (TV show, Space Program) took many months (or even years) of planning and used large amounts of resources, yet these two specific innovations had to occur with extreme constraints (time, resources)
Both went on to be among the most memorable symbols of their respective events

Too often, leaders complain that they are stifled from being innovative due to constraints (lack of time, resources, people, money, etc.)

The game changers and legends in business and history are those people who find ways to overcome constraints rather than being shut down by them.

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Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

How good is your memory?

2011-01-03T23:16:00.007-06:00

Did you watch Saturday morning cartoons as a kid? If so, how good is your memory? What Saturday morning cartoon character wore a hat like this one?

My new hat - just like the one I used to see on Saturday morning.

How confident are you in your answer (or how confident were you before I asked you how confident you are)?

Did you guess Elmer Fudd? If so, you are in good company. Most of the people to whom I show this picture make that guess. Most of them are also quite confident in their memory.

By now you’ve probably guessed that Elmer Fudd did not wear that hat (click here to see Elmer Fudd’s hat) You might be surprised to see that the ear flaps aren't even down (if it even has ear flaps - it's hard to tell). That's interesting because many of the people I talk with say that the ear flaps are the most vivid part of their memory.

So, why do we associated that hat with Elmer Fudd? How come you were probably able to close your eyes and see it on his head? And, why is that memory so strong?

In “The Invisible Gorilla”, Daniel Simons and Chris Chabris argue that our memories are not simple recordings of events. Rather, they are a combination of three things:

1) the actual event.

2) your thinking and planning prior to the event

3) your reflection on that event.

Often, as we try to process an event, our expectations of what SHOULD HAVE happened begin to creep in.

We add associations to things that typically occur at the same time or are thematically related to the original event (e.g., when reflecting on a meeting about employee performance ratings it’s possible that we will also remember talking about their promotions or development needs since often those conversations take place at the same time).

This is what is happening with the hat. Our memory is that Elmer Fudd’s character was a hunter. The plaid, furry ear-flapped cap is iconic of hunters. As a result, our brains combine the two into a single memory. The result: we have a fond vivid memory of Elmer Fudd wearing that hat.

So what does this have to do with leadership? Often leaders get frustrated when people don’t follow their directions or when a group doesn’t seem to “get it” after a presentation or discussion.

Very often the problem is that they didn’t get the message in the first place. Although your memory of the discussion or presentation may seem vivid, it is often flawed. It might include how you practiced giving the message. It might include a reconstruction of the conversation drawing upon past conversations or interactions of a similar nature. It might even include follow on conversations that occurred days or even weeks after the initial conversation.

So the next time you aren’t getting the results you expected pause and step back. Take a lesson from my friend Madeleine Van Hecke, author of the book “Blind Spots”. Madeleine suggests that we teach ourselves to shift from “furious to curious”. When you start to feel angry, reframe the problem. Ask yourself how the misunderstanding could have occurred. Ask what other memories might be seeping into the memory of the actual event. Ask what others might have heard and how their memories might have been altered. And, when you run out of questions, talk to the people around you to find the answers.

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Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

Resolve to stand out this year

2010-12-29T12:05:00.000-06:00

How do you contribute to your organization? Are you good at what you do? Are you an expert? Are you reliable? Helpful? Conscientious? Hard working? Do you consistently do your part?

If you answered “yes” to those questions, you are most likely contributing. However, you might not be standing out from the crowd.

We all have two sources from which we can contribute: 1) our position/role and 2) our intrinsic values and behaviors.

Every role in an organization has a basic value proposition (assuming that it is performed competently). A teacher helps students learn, a nurse tends to the needs of a patient, a musician in a symphony play his or her part flawlessly. However, that contribution isn’t really theirs. It belongs to their role.

It doesn’t matter who is performing the role. If the person is competent, they will contribute. Even if the person is an expert, their value is still based on the role. The expertise just allows them to fully deliver that value. It’s true that people who stand out consistently deliver the contribution that comes from their role. However, they don’t stop there.

People who stand out contribute something unique to the organization – It could be the teacher who makes a special connection with his or her students or the musician who, in addition to playing with technical excellence, is able to bring a new interpretation to the song. In fact, the people who stand out aren’t always the best technically. Think of your favorite teacher, musician, entertainer, leader. What makes that person your favorite? It probably isn’t their technical expertise.

To start thinking about how to position your contribution, try this quick exercise. Draw the following diagram.

In the top half, write out the main contributions that you make based on your role. Then, on the bottom half, write the unique contributions that you’d like to bring to your role.

Assess the things that you are working on and their contribution on a regular basis. Compare them to the chart. Make sure that you are drawing as much as possible from the right side.

Make this the year that you separate yourself from your role. Continue to perform the job that is expected of you but bring more of yourself to it.

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Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

Decision-driven data

2010-12-21T16:36:00.000-06:00

By now, we all know that we are supposed to be making data-driven decisions. Yet, most leaders still struggle to use data effectively. I think that one of the main culprits is that we’ve become data-intensive rather than data-driven.

I recently worked with a leader to streamline his customer satisfaction reports. His report had eight columns of metrics and thirty rows of data – one for each department in his business. That’s 240 discrete pieces of information on one report. No one can processes and keep track of that much information at once. The report was too overwhelming. It was typical of most reports that I see.

I often see reports fall into three traps:

1) They mix outcome data with diagnostic data.

2) They are focused on information rather than action

3) They try to have the most amount of information in order to answer ANY question that the user might have

The result – reports with hundreds or even thousands of data points that are almost impossible to sift through for insights.

I worked with this particular leader to correct these three problems.

Separating outcomes and diagnostic data
Take a look at your dashboard the next time you are in your car. These days, there are only a few indicator lights: oil pressure, engine temperature, and check engine. The lights don’t tell you what’s wrong. Their point is to alert you to take action. When you take the car into the mechanic, he or she plugs a diagnostic tool into a port under your steering wheel. That tool pulls the detailed diagnostic codes needed to determine the problem.

By separating the outcome/action data from the diagnostic data, car manufacturers have greatly clarified and simplified the driver’s decision-making.

The same can be true with business reports. You don’t need diagnostic and outcome information on the same report. It adds too much detail. At best it distracts you from making a decision. At worst, it obscures the decision as you focus your attention in the wrong places of the report

The leader with whom I was working needed to know upon which departments to focus his attention. That was his main decision. Once he knew where to focus, we could use the detailed diagnostic data and KPIs to figure out the specific problem.

To make his initial decision (where and how to focus) there were only two pieces of data that he needed: whether the department was hitting its target and whether the performance increasing or decreasing. So, right from the start, we were able to eliminate six columns (180 pieces of data) from the report.

Focusing on decisions
Reports shouldn’t be designed to simply inform, they should be designed to drive actions. The closer your report aligns with your decisions, the more effective it will be. Often the data on a report is two, three or four steps removed from the decision. To move your report closer to the decision, ask yourself what criteria you use to determine action (and what those subsequent actions would be).

Joe chose one of three simple actions in response to his department's performance:

Take major and immediate action
No immediate action needed but needs to monitor performance
No action required at all

These actions might sound overly simple. But, they represented the first set of decisions he made in determining how and where to act. All of the extra data on his reported, clouded his ability to triage and make this simple set of decisions.

His decision rules and actions are summarized in the following chart:

We now had the data aligned with his decision process.

Focusing data
Trying to have one report that can answer any possible question reduces the report’s effectiveness at answering any specific questions. There’s too much data to absorb. The best reports have least amount of information needed to take action.

Our final step was to redesign his reports to align his data and decisions. His new report simply placed each department into the appropriate box on his decision model.

Now, instead of having a report that forces him to wade through 240 pieces of data to determine an action he has a report where the actions pop right off the page. Of course, this report doesn’t provide the specific action but it does tell him where and how to focus. Notice that although this report is based on metrics and data, it doesn’t show them. It doesn’t need to at this point. His question is where and how to focus. This report answers that question simply and effectively.

Because the report is organized around his decision criteria (as opposed to the lower level information), he can also quickly assess the overall health of his organization:

Only one item in green – This raises a flag right away.
The majority of items are declining in performance - Could be a sign of overall organizational health or of some significant issue
"Immediate and major action” has the most departments - We probably need to make some major organizations changes

In addition, he can more easily find patterns that might help drive his actions:

Do the departments in the lower left have anything in common? (e.g., same manager, using similar programs, etc.)
Do the departments in the upper right (if there was more than one) have anything in common? Can we leverage anything from those departments?
Are the departments that are showing improvement ones that we been working on fixing?

Of course, all of those insights and questions could have come from the original report. It would have just taken a lot longer and the relationships wouldn’t have been as visible.

There are a lot of bad reports out there. We’ve become accustomed to reading and accepting them. But we don’t have to.

Many leaders tell me that they don’t have enough time to think about their data, their actions or about the “right” reports that they need. That is probably because they are spending too much time pouring through unnecessary data and reports that don’t help them make decisions.

The target/trend report is just one type of decision-based report. You can create your own reports that are much more specific to the types of decisions you make. The key is to work backward from the decision and action. When you do, you will have decision-driven data that will be much more effective for supporting data-driven decisions.

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Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

Scrap your action plans. Consider outcome plans instead

2010-12-12T09:30:00.001-06:00

Are you an action planner? Do you make sure that you leave every meeting with a clear list of actions, responsibilities, and due dates? If so, you are probably getting a lot done. But here’s the question: Are you achieving anything?

Getting things done is about completing activities. Achieving something is about creating positive changes to your business. In many organizations, these two ideas get confused.

After a workshop on expectation setting and clarity, one leader listed two “action items” on her follow up plan:

Create team expectations
Talk with team about expectations

Both actions had due dates. The leader took accountability for achieving them. The due date arrived and both actions were complete. A month later, she called me to say that her team still didn’t seem to “get it”.

The plan let her off the hook too early. After completing the two activities (and checking them off), she went on to other things.

Instead, things might have been different if she had an outcome-plan that said, “each team member is clear on my expectations.” It’s a subtle but important difference. Simply writing out team expectations and talking about them wouldn’t be sufficient. She’d have to confirm that her team understood the expectations. If they didn’t she’d need to take additional actions until they did.

It's true that she could have achieved the same thing with the actions if she simply followed up and adjusted as needed. While true, it’s not likely. The value of an action plan is also its potential liability. It creates focus. Leaders, especially busy leaders get so focused on achieving the plan, they lose sight of the bigger picture. They don’t take the time to check back to see if the result was achieved.

Outcome plans take advantage of the clarity and focus created by action plans. However, they change that focus to the end result rather than the activities. That might just be the edge that you need to ensure that what you do makes a difference.

Tips for creating outcome plans:

1) List outcomes! An outcome is a positive change to your business or people. Having a deliverable completed is not an outcome until someone or something is benefiting from it. In that case case, the “benefit” is the real outcome and for what you should be striving.

2) Create sub-outcomes: If the overall outcome is too big, break it down into smaller outcomes so that you can track your progress. For example, while your overall outcome might be to reduce costs, one of your smaller outcomes might be to first get people working more efficiently.

3) Be aggressive but realistic – Outcomes sometimes take longer to achieve than actions so be realistic. However, be aggressive as well. If you set your outcomes too far into the future, nothing will get accomplished.

4) Don’t stretch the outcome date to accommodate the activities. Speed up the activities to reach the outcome quickly.

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Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

Stop being so literal – Learn to think broadly

2010-11-30T15:28:00.000-06:00

Recently at the end of a workshop, we asked participants if we met their expectations for the course. One individual said no. He expected to learn how to work with employees that were more senior than he was. I was puzzled as to why our workshop didn’t meet his needs. Our content focused on how better to understand people’s needs through listening, how to provide performance feedback in a way that people will be receptive, and how to coach people toward their strengths. That all seems quite applicable to working with anyone, including people more senior. Where did we miss the mark?

His concern was that we didn’t have a topic specifically titled “working with people more senior” and we didn't specifically say that the techniques could be used with people that are more senior. Therefore, he didn’t see how the content applied to his situation.

In a different workshop, I was leading a brainstorming session on time management. Leaders were trying to figure out how to carve out more time to prepare for meetings with their clients. I made the observation that the President is certainly busier than any of them, yet is somehow always prepared for his meetings. We talked about how he does that. One person offered that the president has an entourage of people who do the prep work for him and then brief him. I asked the leaders how they could apply that idea to their work. They all said the same thing, “it doesn’t apply, we can’t hire an entourage.” I suggested that they think of pieces involved in using an entourage to see if any of the principles could be translated. Their reply was the same - they couldn’t hire an entourage.

Over the past several years in working with leaders, these types of scenarios have become more common. Many leaders, if not given a solution or an idea that is tightly package within their specific context and parameters, fail to make a link. Perhaps leaders are too time constrained to think (or perceive that they are) or people who do not have the broad enough perspective of the business are being moved into leadership positions. Whatever the case, it is a problem.

Of course, good communicators should work to put things in context whenever possible. The easier it is for a listener to absorb a message, the more likely that person will absorb it. However, in the age of mass information, change, and speed, there is also a new responsibility for the consumer of information. This responsibility is even more critical for leaders.

If you are waiting for all of your information to be wrapped up simply and neatly, you are going to be waiting for a long time. It’s just not effective or efficient. There aren’t enough people available to tailor every piece of information to each leader’s unique situation. And, by the time it was tailored, the information would be out of date.

In the meantime, the people who put in the time and effort to find connections will be passing you by.

Good leaders are able to connect disparate ideas, information, and examples to their world. They don’t get constrained by context but use context to hone their thinking. They regularly take a peek at other industries or business for new ways of thinking about their business. They are the ones who are changing the way that their business or industry works.

Every new experience is an opportunity to learn and change. If you struggle to find that opportunity, you might not be taking the time to look.

Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

Want to give good feedback? Then brush up at playing darts

2010-11-19T09:18:00.000-06:00

Giving feedback is a lot like playing darts. The best way to win is to have a sharp point, pitch it at the right angle, and have it stick.

Keeping your point sharp
Darts become dull when used over and over again. So does feedback. Saying the same thing repeatedly doesn’t reinforce your point, it dulls it. There are three ways to ensure that your points are sharp and that they stay sharp:

1) Be specific “Hone” your feedback by speaking in terms of tangible actions or behaviors. Provide examples and alternatives. Speaking in generalities may make someone aware of the issues but it doesn’t help him or her improve. For example, instead of saying, “Your work is sloppy” you might consider saying, “Your work often has typos and grammatical errors”.

2) Be timely. Memories fade and become dull over time. Try to narrow the gap between when your people perform a positive or negative behavior and when you provide feedback.

3) Use multiple approaches – If your point doesn’t seem to register, regroup. Think of a different way to present the issue. Sometimes you can ask the person to describe their behavior or thought process. They are often surprised at what they discover about themselves. Or, have the person observe someone else who exhibits a similar behavior and discuss it.

Pitch at the right angle
If you throw a dart at the wrong angle, it bounces off the board. Feedback is the same. If your message comes across as a personal attack, it will bounce off the recipient. Sometime it simply deflects to the side. At other times, as with the dart, it comes shooting right back at you. They key to delivering tough messages is positioning them in a way the makes it easier for the recipient to hear rather than deflect.

1) Separate the person from the issue – Talk about behaviors and results rather than attributes or judgments. Think about a) what is happening that shouldn’t or b) what is not happening that should. I often refer to this as speaking in terms of verbs instead of adjectives. For example, saying that someone is demotivated, dishonest, or not engaged are all judgments (adjectives). Behavioral alternatives (verbs) would be “not participative in meetings”, “actions contradict statements” or “not accessible or timely in his or her responses”.

By shifting from adjectives to verbs, you keep the conversation focused on fact-based, observable data that tends to drive less emotional responses. It also drives the conversations to behaviors.

2) Focus on what you know or can see – Telling someone that he or she is late too often provides the basis for a data-driven discussion. Guessing what someone is thinking often leads to the wrong conclusion and can lead to resistance. People resent being told what is inside their head.

3) Use data and benchmarks rather than superlatives– Very few things occur ALWAYS or NEVER. Such words tend to inflame the conversation. Using always or never enables the receiver to discount your statement as soon as they find one counter-example.

Make it stick
In darts, hitting the target in the right place isn’t enough. The dart has to stick. The same is true for feedback. Having a sharp point and throwing at the right angle are a good start. You also need enough force to penetrate the target.

1) Be direct – If you have a serious issue to address, address it directly. Hedging or qualifying your comments gives the receiver a free pass to discount what you are saying. Similarly, if something is important they need to know. Not all feedback is equal. Some is meant to polish performance. Other feedback is meant to fix problems and needs immediate attention. Don’t leave that interpretation to chance.

2) Keep it forward-facing – World-class athletes visualize their event before starting. Good dart players focus on the part of the target they want to hit. They don’t look at the spots they want to avoid. . By focusing on the positive behaviors, you provide your people with something to which they can aspire. It’s easier to visualize executing positive behaviors than it is to visualize avoiding negative ones.

What you visualize you often achieve. I once heard a professor say that it is difficult for the brain to visualize something not happening. So, although you keep repeating “don’t spill” to a child, he or she often will spill. This is because their brains have trouble visualizing the negative so they visualize spilling and their actions follow.

Instead of saying “You are too focused on your discrete part of the business” you might say, “We need you to broaden your thinking and actions to address the needs of the business as a whole.”

3) Create accountability – Often leaders do a great job of delivering a tough message, but then let the person off the hook. Feedback should end with an expectation of what should happen as a result of the discussion. Then it’s your job to follow up to see that it is happening.

By making your feedback sharp, pitched correctly, and sticky you increase the chance that it will take hold and influence behavior. While most of this essay focused on giving “negative” feedback, the same principles apply to positive feedback. If you want people to continue doing something positive, it is equally important to make sure that they understand what they did, they hear your message, and it sticks.

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Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

Ti-i-i-ime is on your side

2010-11-06T09:07:00.003-05:00

Recently, a sales manager told me that he wished he had more time to do background research on his prospective clients. He was certain that if he had more time he’d be winning more sales. I asked him how the people who were winning the sales got up to speed on the client. He said that they must have more time to do research.

His statement reminded me of a comment someone once made about a project manager. This person said, “He’s not as good as everyone thinks. He just gets all of the projects that don’t have problems.” It never occurred to him that this manager's approach to project management prevented most of the problems.

Several years ago a colleague told me that I was lucky to ALWAYS be placed into roles that allowed me to take time to think. He said that his roles were always ones that required constant action and provided no room for thinking. I challenged him. Did he really believe that luck or coincidence shaped my and his roles? I asked him if I’d perform his role in the same manner as he did. He agreed that I probably would not. I then asked how he would run my group if he had the chance. He got the point. It wasn’t about our roles, it was about our approaches.

Lack of time isn't a problem, it's an excuse. Good leaders don’t simply have more time or more luck than everyone else. They’ve just learned to think about and use their time differently. They create opportunities and take actions that others overlook or don’t believe to be possible.. They are more willing to invest time upfront to think things through and put the right infrastructure in place. That way they aren’t spending all of their time on the back end reacting to problems. They don’t buy into the excuse that they don’t have the time to do things that take time. Instead, they find time. They know how to prioritize their effort and are willing to say no (or not now) to low priority work.

If you believe that a lack of time is what is preventing you from being a more effective leader, think again. Having enough time to do the right things doesn't enable leaders; it defines them. The successful leaders in your organization have the exact same amount of time as do you. Leadership is about finding the time to do the right things when those around you can’t. If were easy, everyone would be able to lead.

Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

Syncing your data and your decisions

2010-10-26T11:12:00.000-05:00

Is there such a thing as having too much data? Absolutely and more and more organizations are starting to feel the pain.

Automation, especially over the internet has allowed even the smallest companies to generate vast amounts of data. Unfortunately, most of it goes unused. Either it sits in databases and on servers unknown to all but a few people in the IT department (whose job is to collect it not use it) or it makes its way onto reports creating significant noise and clutter. In either case, it’s not helping.

But the sheer quantity of data isn’t the only problem that is overwhelming leaders. The bigger problem lies with data that are not aligned with decisions. I’m not talking about having the wrong data (which is a problem unto itself). Rather, I am referring to having the right data that is either too granular or frequent to be useful.

For example, one company reported employee satisfaction scores to two decimal places. The scores represented the percentage of people who answered a given question favorably (4 or 5 out of 5). There were two problems with this level of reporting.

First, on a scale of 0 to 100 (since it was a percentage), the hundredths place is very sensitive to small changes. When changes occur on a report, people have a natural tendency to spend time trying to understand and explain them. Control charts and other lean/six sigma tools can help leaders distill real changes from noise, but the constant changes draw attention away from more important problems.

Second and more importantly, the decisions that a leader would make on such data are not distinguishable in .01 increments. In fact, a change of 4 or 5 points might not even differentiate a decision or action.

From a statistical standpoint, small changes might have meaning. From a practical standpoint, they often don’t (see It might be significant but that doesn't mean it matters).

The leaders who used this satisfaction report would get bogged down in discussions about why a number went from 65.34 to 65.89. They’d mistakenly take credit for "successful" programs, "good" implementation, and "responsiveness" to employee needs. However, from an employee standpoint, there really wasn’t much change. In either case, one out of every three people was still not happy.

Reporting should be aligned with decision-making. If your actions would be the same at 60, 65, or even 70, then there is no reason to report to a lower level of granularity than that. For diagnostic and “drill-down” purposes, having the exact number might be helpful. But, even then, it’s probably not necessary to go to the second decimal place.

Context should drive precision. For satisfaction, it is probably ok to report results in quartiles as that is the level that many people would differentiate their actions. On the other hand, for some manufacturing processes, the level of precision might need to go to five or six decimals places to support their decisions and actions.

The other type of precision that creates problems for leaders is frequency. In many organizations, reports come out too often. We’ve all heard advice when losing weight or making investments that we shouldn’t check the data every day. The same is true in business. Reporting too frequently can put your leaders into a reactive mode. They take new actions before seeing if prior actions are working. In The Fifth Discipline, Peter Senge introduced this problem:

Virtually all feedback processes have some form of delay. But often the delays are either unrecognized or not well understood. This can result in “overshoot,” going further than needed to achieve a desired result. The delay between eating and feeling full has been the nemesis of many a happy diner…Unrecognized delays can also lead to instability and breakdown, especially when they are long.”

Senge’s most famous example of this is setting the temperature in an unfamiliar shower. We turn the faucet toward hot. We then test the water. If it’s still cold, we turn the faucet further toward hot. We test it again. If it is still cold or just lukewarm, we once again turn the faucet further. Finally, once the system catches up with itself, when we reach in, we are scalded by extremely hot water. Overcompensating in the middle of a feedback loop will often get you burned.

Reporting too frequently can cause dysfunctional behavior. In one organization, customer satisfaction scores were released each week. If the scores went down, leaders would jump into action in an attempt to improve them. If the scores went up, they would often credit the success of their latest program.

The problem with this approach is that the scores that the leaders were seeing one week often had nothing to do with their last set of decisions. More likely, they were reflective of program or interventions that were put into place weeks or even month prior.

Think about a typical cycle in your organization. How long does it take between identifying a problem, determining a solution, implementing the solution, and having that solution start to add value? It’s probably a lot longer than a week.

Because of reporting frequency, many leaders fall into the trap of taking a new action before understanding if their prior actions have had any impact.

The context in which you make decisions should drive frequency just as it drives granularity. Monthly or quarterly reporting might be appropriate for satisfaction-related data. However, it would certainly be inappropriate for a day trader who needs real time information on the market.

There are times when extra precision is helpful. If you have just launched a new initiative, you might want to report more regularly and to a finer level of detail just to see if and when changes are starting to occur. But then again, that is a different context and your decisions and actions would reflect that. For general day-to-day operations, too much granularity and too much frequency will generally create unnecessary (and sometimes unhelpful) actions and effort.

Take a look at your reports and ask yourself these questions:

1) Is my data at the right level of granularity? What are the different “trigger points” in my decision-making? Is my data aligned with those trigger points?

2) How long does it take from the time I recognize a problem to the time a solution might start to show signs of working? Is my report frequency aligned with that cycle?

Synchronizing your data and decisions will help you focus on decision-making and actions. It will reduce the amount of data (and noise) with which you are dealing. It will save you time. And, it will probably drive faster, more efficient decisions and actions.

Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

Being two minutes smarter than your audience doesn’t work

2010-10-23T12:02:00.000-05:00

About ten years ago, I had the opportunity to hear Sandy Linver, the founder of Speakeasy, Inc and the author of the book, Speak and Get Results: The Complete Guide to Presentations and Speeches That Work in Any Business Situation. Sandy’s presentation was on how to give presentations.

During the Q&A, someone asked what to do if you are called in, at the last minute, to substitute on a presentation for which you don’t know the content. Sandy’s response was quick, simple, and clear. You should never do a presentation on a topic that you don’t fully understand.

I’ve often thought about her response. It seems as though true understanding has given way to detailed notes pages and “message point” documents designed to allow anyone to deliver a message.

But there is a problem with such tools. They don’t replace understanding. If the only difference between a presenter and his or her audience is that one has pre-read the script, your communication or training event is going to fall short. As soon as someone asks a question that wasn’t anticipated or wants more detail, the conversation is over.

Unfortunately, the remedy in such situations is usually to try to anticipate more questions and pack more detail into the notes or message points. The result isn’t more effective communication. Rather, the communication becomes more mechanical and lifeless to the receiver. A good communicator brings life and meaning to message points and notes. He or she doesn’t simply recite them.

I’ve been in many situations where I’ve been asked to over simplify the content of a presentation so that any leader can be pulled in to teach it. While that makes it easier for the leader, it short-changes the participants.

If a topic is important enough to warrant your people’s time and attention, it should be important enough to have a qualified person deliver it. There are plenty excuses for why leaders aren’t ready or able to deliver such messages. But, those are just excuses.

If you or your leaders do not have enough understanding to communicate with or train your people, find someone who does.

Being two minutes smarter than your audience doesn’t help. They could have read the notes pages or message points just as well as you. A leader’s job is to create meaning and make connections. Anyone can read a script.

Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

Are you playing with a full deck? Personality Poker will help you find out.

2010-10-11T14:27:00.000-05:00

How often do you hear someone say, "I'm just working with the hand I was dealt" when referring to their strengths and weaknesses? It's a pretty common phrase. Well, Steve Shapiro, an innovation expert and author of 24/7 Innovation and The Little Book of Big Innovation Ideas, has taken that idea one step further. Shapiro just released Personality Poker, a custom card deck and book that helps individuals and teams gain better insight into their personality styles.

You may be asking why we need another personality tool. After all, the market seems to be flooded with tools, assessments, books, and instruments all designed to help you hone in on your personality. The answer is simple: Personality Poker demystifies the process, makes it fun, and makes it simple. It also provides the most practical advice on how to translate understanding of your personality into improved performance.

Most assessments are long and drawn out and often require three steps: completing the assessment, processing the assessment, debriefing the results. Those three steps can sometimes occur weeks apart. And, they are done individually. If you want to to understand other people's strengths, you often need a fourth step, some type of group debrief.

Personality Poker combines those four steps into a a 60 minute activity that will have your people buzzing for weeks. The premise of the game is simple - collect and/or trade cards until you have a "hand" that best represents who you are. Shapiro has spent over a decade honing the cards so that they provide a reliable and valid assessment of people's personalities. He has cleverly adapted something that we are familiar with, a standard card deck, into an assessment tool. Each attribute of the card provides a different insight into your personality style:

Color - your thinking style
Suit - your innovation style, where you work best in the innovation process
Number - where and how you draw energy

When you finally create your "ideal" hand, you will see a simple yet powerful snapshot of who you are and how you interact with others. You can use that understanding to guide further discussion, assemble teams, or provide coaching to your people. The accompanying Personality Poker book provides in-depth discussion and analysis of the various personality styles revealed through the cards.

I'd highly recommend Personality Poker to anyone who is interested in increasing innovation, improving performance, and developing high performing teams. You can get more information about Personality Poker at http://personalitypokerbook.com/. It's the last personality assessment that you'll ever need.

What ever happened to doing the right thing just because it was the right thing to do?

2010-10-09T11:49:00.006-05:00

Verizon Wireless recently found itself in an uncomfortable position. It seems that a “software glitch” was accidentally charging data use charges when the customers weren’t using any data services.

The story made its way into the local and national media. Verizon is now issuing credits to its customers.
However, the back story of this situation is a bit more interesting. Theresa Dixon Murray noticed the erroneous charges on her son’s account. She contacted Verizon on and off for six months. Each time she called, she got a different excuse and/or reason for the charge (none of which were correct). Finally, due to some other reasons, her son lost phone privileges for a month. The phone was locked up. Yet when the bill came, the data charges were still there.

At this point, she contacted Verizon again. This time, she didn’t identify herself as a customer. Instead she approached them through her job as a business columnist for the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper. Verizon’s response was quite different. According to Dixon Murray, “As a customer it (the response) was one way, as a reporter it was a very different way.” Within a week, Verizon flew in people from their corporate offices. http://videos.cleveland.com/plain-dealer/2010/10/plain_dealer_business_columnis.html

This story reminded me of another incident about two years ago involving United Airlines. Dave Carroll, a musician from Canada, was on a United flight. As he sat waiting for take-off, he saw the baggage handlers throwing his $3,500 guitar. When he arrived in Chicago, the guitar was broken. Despite many months of trying, he could not get United to compensate him for the damages (or admit fault). Finally, Carroll went around United creating a music video called “United Breaks Guitars.” The video went viral on YouTube™ registering four million hits in just ten days. United ultimately compensated Mr. Carroll and even asked if they could use his video for an internal training program. http://news.softpedia.com/news/United-Airlines-Breaks-Guitars-Loses-180-Million-117494.shtml

In the end, each company did the right thing. The problem is that they missed the opportunity to do it just because it was the right thing to do. In both cases, the companies didn't take action until some other pressure forced them to do so. In other words, they didn't take action to help their customer, they took the action to help themselves.

Why does it take such extreme actions to get a company to do the right thing? Few customers have the access to the media or the time and ability to create a music video that prompted action in these cases. Does that mean that most customers just have to accept such problems and move on?

I understand that businesses are facing increased pressure to manage expenses. However, honoring their end of a business transaction shouldn't be considered an expense. Ms. Dixon Murray wasn’t asking for a year of free service, a discount on service, or a free cell phone. She just didn’t want to pay for services that she didn’t use. I’m sure that if Verizon had a software glitch causing them miss a bill one month, they would think it was reasonable to make a correction on the next month’s bill. So why was it so hard for them to properly address a situation where a customer was charged for something that she didn’t use?

Similarly, David Carroll wasn’t looking for free flights or upgrades. He just wanted to be compensated for the property that the airline damaged.

What type of leadership are we providing if front line customer service representatives are unable or afraid to do the right thing? How well are we training our people if they don’t understand the difference between discretionary expenses and the business’ obligation to its customers.

Leader’s need to step back and remember that customers are not their adversaries. It’s also time for leaders to step up and show the courage and confidence needed to do what’s right - whether with customers, their own people, or the communities in which they operate.

If you or your leaders cannot do the right thing simply because it’s right, it might be time to find some new leaders.

Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

Did video really kill the radio star?

2010-10-04T19:33:00.001-05:00

A week ago Sunday, September 26, was the 50th anniversary of the first Nixon/Kennedy debate. Many consider this event to be a major turning point in U.S. politics. It was the first time a presidential debate was televised. Many also consider this a turning point in Nixon’s career. The general consensus seemed to be that he had a “face for radio”.

The data on the debate is interesting. Those who watched it on TV believe that Kennedy performed best. Those listening on radio believed that Nixon performed best.

Wally Podrazik, author of “Watching TV: Six Decades of American Television” commented that Nixon was perceived as a man of the 50’s era. Kennedy represented the future and new ways of the 60s. Most people agreed. Nixon seemed uncomfortable and awkward in front of the camera. Many felt that he looked worn out and tired. Kennedy, young and handsome, played to the camera to his advantage.

At first glance, the data seems to support a logical conclusion. Television seemed to be Kennedy’s medium helping him sneak out a victory by a mere 113,000 votes (.1% of the popular vote)

But Bruce Dumont, host of radio’s “Beyond the Beltway”, has a different take. Perhaps television wasn’t the cause of the viewers’ higher marks for Kennedy. Maybe it just happened to be that those people with televisions were predisposed to Kennedy’s message.

Dumont points out that in the 60s television was less widespread than today. It is important to consider WHO was likely to have a television back then.

At the time, televisions were more common in urban areas and cities with large Catholic populations (Kennedy’s religion was a big issue at the time). Those types of people generally aligned more with Kennedy’s Democratic, message. People in the South, West and rural areas had less access to television. They tended to align themselves with a Republican message.

Dumont’s observations provide a striking example of two issues that, on the surface, appear to have a causal relationship. However, digging deeper suggests that perhaps they are two correlated items with a common cause. In this case, the “cause” of both candidate preference and type of media used to access the debate was possibly where a person lived (and the political leanings associated with that).

This also provides a good reminder that looking at data, without considering the broader context in which that data occurred, can lead to erroneous conclusions.

Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

The four key types of expectations

2010-09-28T16:25:00.000-05:00

Lately, I’ve been talking quite a bit with leaders about expectation setting. Interestingly, the conversation doesn’t always start there. Usually it starts with concerns about employee productivity and performance or disappointment that the organization’s culture seems to be at odds with the leader’s vision. Yet, after peeling back those issues, we often find the same culprit – lack of clarity and accountability around expectations.

Expectations cannot be inferred
Everyone, at every level of the organization needs to hear what is expected of him or her. There is a common myth that people higher up in the organization do not need to have expectations laid out. Somehow they are supposed to “know what is expected.”

That’s simply not true. No one, regardless of how senior in the organization can read his or her bosses’ mind. It’s true that most competent people understand their company or department's overall targets and goals. But, there are a lot of ways to make a company successful. Consider this analogy. If ten ships set sail from New York to London but are 5-10 degrees off course from one another, they aren’t going to wind up in the same place. The same is true of your people. Even if they are able to “infer” 90-95% of your expectations, they might wind up in the same general area, but they aren’t going to land together.

In addition, good leaders adjust their expectations over time. In my very first performance review I received an “exceeds expectations” mark in every category. After congratulating me on my performance, my boss said, “Now that I know what you are capable of, my expectations have changed. If you do the same things this coming year, you’ll only meet my expectations.”

Sometimes expectations change because a leader better understands his or her people’s ability. Sometimes it is because the business context changed. Regardless of the reason, expectations change. Do you really know what you are going to be expecting of your people in three, six, nine, or twelve months? If you don’t know, how can you expect your people to know?

Compounding the problem is that there are different types of expectations. Just as a balanced scorecard helps ensure that a business has a holistic set of measures, it is important to provide a holistic set of expectations.

Four key types of expectations
There are four types of expectations that leaders should set for their people:

Results: What business results do your people need to deliver? What metrics and standards will you use to measure those results? These are the easy expectations. Most leaders do a good job of setting and tracking them.

Cultural/Behavioral: Is it ok for your people to get those results at any cost? Or, are you trying to build a specific type of culture in your organization? Do your people understand that culture? Do they know how you expect them to treat their co-workers, your customers, and others? Do they know if you want them to take risks or manage risks? Do they know if you are looking for innovation or are just trying to keep things running smoothly? (for more information on setting cultural expectations, see my post: What culture are you trying to create? Does your team know?)

Process: What actions should your people take to position your company/department for success? Should they be reaching out and building bridges with specific people or groups? Should they be focusing their attention on certain issues, customer segments, or opportunities? It’s not enough for people to know the outcome you want to achieve, if you have a vision for how to get there, they’d better understand that as well.

Individual contribution: Each of your people has unique strengths. It’s true that you might expect all of your sales people to meet revenue targets but how they do it might differ. For example, one person might be better at mobilizing others. Another person might be great at finding process improvement opportunities. Still someone else might be a superstar with the customer. Let your people know how you expect them to leverage their strengths above and beyond the day to day mechanics of doing their job. More importantly, let them what you expect them to do in order for you to help them succeed. Should they be focusing on increasing visibility ith senior leaders or improving credibility with their peers? Is it more important that they deliver one big project this year or do they need to be seen as contributing to the success of many smaller initiatives? (for more information on understanding an leveraging individual strengths, see my post, What's so special about YOU anyway?)

If you don’t need to provide expectations, then your people don’t need you
A leader’s job is to create clarity and focus for his or her people. If your people can figure everything out for themselves, then they don’t need you as a leader.

Help your people understand what they are to accomplish, how they should behave, and, at a high level, where they should focus in order to ensure company and their own success. Your value as a leader comes from ensuring that everyone in your organization understands those four things.

Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

Fix the economy: Stop buying AC/DC Albums

2010-09-14T23:49:00.004-05:00

In the October 27, 2008 issue of The Guardian, Alexis Petridis makes an interesting observation

“Last night came final and irrevocable proof that the country is entering tough economic times, unseen since the 80s: AC/DC have returned to the top of the album charts for the first time in 28 years. . . Those keen to draw wider inferences from its success might note that the last time AC/DC made No 1 in Britain, the country was on the brink of recession. . . When the economy recovered, AC/DC's popularity receded. . . But right on cue the album that returned the band to its heyday was The Razors Edge, released in 1990 - just as Britain headed towards its last recession.”

So, fixing the economy (at least in the UK) seems to be as simple as boycotting AC/DC, right? Of course not.

Most people see this as an interesting coincidence. Some, like Petridis even go on to speculate about a link between the two

“AC/DC's appeal in unpredictable times is straightforward. People crave something uncomplicated and dependable in a time of uncertainty, and rock music has never produced a band so uncomplicated and dependable as AC/DC.”

Yet, no one would think that AC/DC’s commercial success causes economic turmoil.

Sometimes that distinction isn’t as clear, especially when the two issues are more closely associated. Confusing coincidence, correlation, and causality can lead to bad decisions and costly actions.

Correlation is when two things consistently move in the same (or opposite) directions. For example, your credit rating and insurance risk are correlated. People with better credit ratings generally have lower risk. Better credit doesn’t cause their risk to be lower. It just happens that those two things tend to go together. They are probably influenced (caused) by similar sets of personal attributes. One advantage of correlations is that they can provide insight into how one thing is likely to behave based on the behavior of something else. As with the case of insurance underwriting, this is especially helpful when it is easier to gain information on one of the two issues at hand. Correlation doesn’t give you insight into how to change either of those behaviors or how they interact. Contacting one of the many agencies that promises to improve your credit rating won’t make you a safer driver.

Confusing correlation for causality could lead to erroneous and ineffective investments. In the book Freakonomics, Steven Levitt and Stephan Dubner describe such an error. A study showed that children whose households had more books performed better academically. This was a correlation. The number of books doesn’t cause kids to be smarter. Both the number of books in a house and academic performance are probably a result (caused) by parent attitudes about learning.

However, in early 2004, Former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich developed a proposal. The state would mail one book per month to every child in Illinois from the time they were born until they entered kindergarten. The legislature ultimately turned the proposal down. Had they not, the state would have spent approximately $26 million in taxpayers’ money on a program that would have provided little value. Confusing correlation and causality can be costly. But it’s easy to fall into the trap. Mailing books is much easier than improving student performance and it creates the illusion of action. It’s tempting.

In a prior entry, I referenced a report that argued companies should invest more in engaging their employees. The report cited a study showing that companies with low employee engagement also had lower shareholder value. However, the data, as presented, did not show causality, it only showed correlation. There might be a causal relationship, but you must find evidence for it, and not infer it from the correlation. Perhaps the causality was reversed - companies with lower shareholder value might not have as much to invest in their people, causing decreased engagement. Or, maybe the poor performance and engagement was due to bad leadership, management, systems, tools, or processes. Before taking an action to fix a problem, it is important to know whether that action will actually change anything.

Many leaders feel pressure to demonstrate action and prove “ROI” on that action. That’s when the lure of correlation becomes strong. It’s convenient to assume that positive business results are caused by the most recent initiatives or actions that you’ve put in place. But, don’t fall into the trap. Before declaring victory on your actions (or investing in new one) make sure that you know if the relationships that you are seeing are causal, correlations, or just simple coincidences.

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Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

Know your triggers

2010-09-07T12:00:00.001-05:00

Have you ever noticed that sometimes your ideas blow everyone away and then, in the very next meeting, you seem to be the only one who doesn’t “get it”? What’s going on? Your ability to think can’t be changing that quickly. Can it?

No, it can’t. In fact, your ability to think changes very slowly. So why is your thinking right on sometimes and not happening at other times?

David Perkins, Shari Tishman,Ron Ritchhart, Kiki Donis, and Al Andrade argue that good thinking is driven by three dispositions: (1) sensitivity – recognizing that it is an appropriate time to employ a set of critical thinking behaviors (2) inclination – the desire to apply those behaviors; and (3) ability - the knowledge, skills and tools needed to think (Perkins, D, Tishman,S, Ritchhart, R, Donis, K, and Andrade, A. Intelligence in the Wild: A Dispositional View of Intellectual Traits, Educational Psychology Review, Vol. 12, No. 3, 2000)

For example, suppose that you are under a tight deadline to come up with a new marketing campaign. You might be so relieved when you hear the first good idea that you don’t think to explore alternatives. That would be a lack of sensitivity. Or, perhaps you know that you should look into alternatives, but due to the time pressure, you decide to go with that first good idea. That’s an example of a lack of inclination. Finally, you might know and want to find alternatives, but you are locked into a single way of thinking. You don’t know how to look at the problem from a fresh perspective. That’s an issue of ability.

Successful leaders and experts have mastered all three of these dispositions. Unfortunately, most critical thinking or innovation/creativity courses only focus on ability. Improving sensitivity and inclination is left up to you. That's too bad since most thinking problems are rooted in those two areas.

Getting a handle on your triggers is one way to overcome sensitivity and inclination issues. Triggers are situations that cause you to stop thinking. Often some type of stress in the environment drives your triggers. In the earlier example, the deadline was the trigger. Time pressure often causes us to stop thinking.

Each person has his or her own set of triggers although there are some common themes. Examples include deadlines, confrontation, working with peers, working with your boss, working on something new, working on something old, and change.

Your job is to figure out 1) which ones impact you the most 2) how they impact your thinking, and 3) how to recognize if you are falling victim to one.

Unfortunately, most people aren't always aware of their triggers. That’s why they are so dangerous. The good news is there are a few ways that you can better understand your triggers:

Ask someone. While you might not be aware of your triggers, the people around you probably are. Ask them what your “hot buttons” are. Find out what situations set you off. Ask how your thinking changes when those buttons are pressed.

Ask yourself. Even though you might not be conscious of your triggers, your body usually is. Pay attention to the signals that your body gives you – butterflies in the stomach, feeling flushed, heart pounding, sweating, dry mouth, insomnia, irritability, etc. All of these might be signs that you are feeling stressed or overwhelmed. Take a step back when your body sends you a message. Try to pinpoint what is causing the stress. That is probably your trigger.

Reflect. After your meetings or projects sit down and review your thinking process. Did you seek alternatives, validate information, and challenge assumptions? If you find that you didn’t, think about what got in your way. Look for patterns over time that predict when you are more or less likely to engage in good thinking.

Once you understand your triggers, you can start to act on them. Proactive steps like building thinking time into an agenda can help. Or, you can assign someone the role of playing devil’s advocate. You also might start recognizing the signs that you’ve turned off your sensitivity and inclination. When that happens, the best solution is to call a brief time out to regroup and refocus.

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Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

Keep an eye on your relatives

2010-08-31T15:10:00.001-05:00

We all have unusual relatives. You know the ones. You try to avoid them at family gatherings. Sure, sometimes they can provide a good story or an entertaining observation. But, in general, you know how to manage them. When you see them coming, you head for the kitchen to wash the dishes.

Unfortunately, we aren’t always as good at managing relative data. Relative data are those calculations and metrics that summarize and simplify a data set. Often, we use this data as the basis for further analysis rather than going back to the source. That’s a mistake.

Consider this example. Two baseball players are competing for the league’s batting title. In the first half of the season, Player A has a higher batting average than Player B. Then, in the second half of the season, Player A once again hits for a higher batting average than Player B. Is it possible for player B to wind up with a higher battering average for the season as a whole?(from John Allen Paulos' book, Innumeracy)

Before answering, think about this other example. You have two departments in your company. Department A has employee satisfaction of 4.15 and Department B has employee satisfaction of 4.05. Is it possible that Department B has more people who are satisfied?

The answer to both questions is “yes”. (for an explanation, see graphics at end of the article)

Did those answers surprise you? If so you might be falling into the common trap of taking the average of one or more averages. The distribution and number of data points in each sample makes a difference when “rolling up” data. Averages omit information about either of those. Taking the average of a set of averages results in being two steps removed from the original data. A lot of information can be lost. We all learned this lesson playing the telephone game in school. The further you get from the source, the less reliable and useful the information.

I recently saw another example of the misuse of relative data. An author claimed that lower employee engagement can lead to a 300% drop in shareholder value. This was based on data showing that companies with higher than average employee engagement, had a 10% greater return on shareholder value than average. Companies with lower than average employee engagement had a 20% lower return on shareholder value.

This conclusion is misleading. The real drop in shareholder value is 30%, the difference between the two percentages.

It’s true that a loss of 20 cents is 300% less than a gain of 10 cents, but that’s a different issue. While technically correct, it’s misleading – especially when presented as the “drop” in value. It’s not the drop in shareholder value, it’s the percentage difference between the percent differences in shareholder value. You are now two steps removed from the original data.

The problem with using a relative comparison of a relative comparison is that it doesn’t really tell you anything. 300% sounds like a spectacular difference. However, the difference between one and four is also 300% as is the difference between .01 and .04. Each of those changes implies something very different in terms of the actual impact on shareholder value. What you care about as a leader are the actual changes and how they compare.

Use caution when working with relative numbers or numbers that are representations of data. They are fine for getting a quick read of your data. However, using them as the basis for further calculations and analysis is risky. You quickly lose meaning and understanding of the original data set. To deepen your analysis, go back to the original data.

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Illustration of baseball and employee engagement examples

Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

Learning from our teenagers

2010-08-23T14:34:00.001-05:00

Well, summer's over and it's time to go back to school. It seems like the right time to re-run this entry (from a couple of years ago) on what we, as leaders, could learn from our teenagers.
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I know that we were supposed to have learned everything we needed to know in Kindergarten. It's hard to argue with sharing, saying "thank you" and playing nice.

However, from a leadership point of view, I think we need to look a little farther down the road. I know teenagers may seem like an unlikely source of business wisdom. However, if you pay attention, their messages are right on. More importantly, they are simple and to the point:

• So what?
• Yeah Mom, I’ll do it later
• No way—I’m not doing that!
• Are we there yet?
• How will I ever use this when I grow up?
• You just don’t know what it’s like for kids today
• Is that it?

Try to bring a little more of that "inner" teenager to work with you. Just leave the iPod at home.

So what?
Great leaders create meaning and purpose for their people. Don't just bark out orders. Help people understand the big picture. People will rally around purpose more than they will a task.

Yeah Mom, I'll do it later
You can’t do everything. Some things matter more than others. Keep the 80/20 rule in mind. Eighty percent of the value you create comes from twenty percent of your effort. Prioritize your work to ensure that you are doing the most important things for yourself and for your organization. Put off those things that are not critical to the organization’s success.

No way - I'm not doing that
Learn to say 'no' and mean it. Protect your time, and more importantly, your team's time. Keep the administrative and busy work to a minimum if you can't eliminate it entirely.

Are we there yet?
Teenagers don’t care about the plane trip, they just want to get to the beach. Your boss and customers are similar. They don’t care about all the stuff you “do”, it is what you accomplish that gets noticed. Stay focused on results--don't just get caught up in activity.

How will I ever use this when I grow up?
Your people's time is valuable. It might be nice for them to learn your company's history during orientation, but it probably won’t help them do their job better. Understand what is keeping your people from performing and focus on that. Keep the "interesting" stuff to a minimum and make it available off-line--if they want to read it.

You don't know what it’s like for kids today
What motivates you might not motivate others. Their goals are probably not the same as yours. Treat each person as individual. Talk to your people directly. Don't rely on your managers and supervisors to give you the scoop. And, don't let the employee survey be your main source of input from your team. Get to know them yourself. The same holds true for your customers.

Is that it?
Your kids want complete solutions. They want the latest smart phone, the apps, the downloads, the leather carrying case, the skins, and the rapid-charger. Give them just one and they'll look at you like your nuts. Your business needs complete solutions too. If a problem is worth solving, it’s worth solving completely. Don’t cut corners or skimp. It is better to have one problem fully solved than five problems partially solved. The partial solutions often breed new problems of their own.

Following the wisdom of a teenager can greatly improve your communication, team effectiveness, and overall impact. Of course, there are probably a few things that your teenagers can learn from you too.

When eight out of 94 equals .4%

2010-08-16T11:11:00.003-05:00

In his book, Reckoning with Risk, Gerg Gigerenzer tells the following story about computing risk:

"A few years ago, I enjoyed a guided tour through Daimler-Benz Aerospace (DASA), which produces the Ariane, a rocket that carries satellites into orbit. Standing with my guide in front of a large poster that listed all 94 rockets launched so far (Ariane models 4 and 5), I asked him what the risk of an accident was. He replied that the security factor is around 99.6 percent. That was surprisingly high because on the poster I saw eight stars, which meant eight accidents. . . I asked my guide how eight accidents could translate into 99.6 percent certainty. He replied that DASA did not count the number of accidents, but rather computed the security factor from the design features of the individual parts of the rocket. He added that counting accidents would have included human errors and pointed out that behind one of these stars, for instance, was a misunderstanding between one worker who had not installed a screw, and the worker on the next shift who had assumed that his predecessor had done so."

Theoretically, the calculation was correct. Combining the risks of the parts can predict the risk of the whole.

However, it describes a rocket that doesn't exist. A rocket is not just a collection of its parts. All rockets are assembled by people and/or machines. Human or machine error is a major factor in considering the safety of the rocket. The 99.6% security factor simply did not represent the real world. Just look at the evidence. The actual failure rate was 21 times greater than the computed risk. Having an accident in one out of every 12 rockets drives a very different set of decisions than does one out of every 250.

Data should reflect the context in which your decisions and actions play out. Otherwise, despite its technical accuracy, it can drive the wrong decisions. When the rocket was first developed, there wasn't any experiential data. Therefore, the calculation they used was probably the best approximation. However, it would seem that the calculation should have been updated when the context changed and more information became available. This is especially true given that the actual data were significantly different from what was projected. It's ok to change your metrics or your calculations as you learn more about your business.

Take a look at the data that you use to make decisions. Do they accurately reflect reality? Do you understand what information is included and excluded? Do you know who created this data and for what purpose? If you answered "no" to any of these questions, you might be working under a false sense of certainty.

Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

Do your tools just help you do the wrong things more efficiently?

2010-08-10T09:47:00.002-05:00

When I was younger, my friend Brian and I used to go fishing a lot. Boy did we look the part. We both had an incredible arsenal of fishing gear: multiple poles, waders, bait catchers, and tackle boxes so big we needed a wagon to carry them. We could have graced the cover of any reputable fishing magazine except for one thing. We never caught any fish!

All around us, people with much less gear always seemed to have more "luck". It wasn't about luck. Brian and I had no idea what we were doing.

Many years later, I worked with a guy named Les Artman. Les had a simple time management system. He kept a 3 x 5 index card in his shirt pocket. Every time he needed to do something he wrote it on the index card. (Les had an incredible talent of writing in 4 point font). As he completed a task, he'd cross it off. Once the index card got full, he'd transfer the open tasks to a new one and start over. Les was surrounded by people with sophisticated day planners or electronic information managers (this was pre-Blackberry and iPad) yet he was more productive than anyone I've ever met.

Often, when working with a new client on a workshop, they ask what tools I will be providing. My response, in general, is "not many". This makes a lot of people uncomfortable. They aren't sure how people can do their jobs better without tools. I assure them that they will get the tools they need but they will get something even more important - an understanding of what they are doing.

I'm not opposed to tools. I do include them, when appropriate, in my workshops and in my consulting work. But tools (and processes) need to be used in context. They help improve performance only if the person using them knows what he or she is doing. Otherwise, most just makes it easier to do the wrong things in a fast, structured, and efficient manner.

This issue of tools versus understanding surfaces most when talking about "soft skills" such as communication, change management, or leading people. Perhaps the stigma of being called "soft skills" drives the need to create tools and templates. Having a tool seems to lend some type of engineering quality to a task.

But the problem is that tools don't replace thinking or understanding. Developing a communication plan without really understanding and appreciating people's needs and concerns will probably make your change program more difficult. I've seen a lot of leaders do a lot of damage using tools without understanding.

Think of people who are good communicators. They take the time to think about what they want to say (or hear), and determine the best way to do it. They don't need fancy tools. In fact, many do what they do in a very natural, simple way. Like Les Artman, the best leaders understand what they are doing and adapt tools to their needs.

Understanding and thinking take more time than completing templates but they yield better results. Give your leaders tools and processes to support and facilitate their thinking. Don't use them to replace thinking.

Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

Creating Impact Plans

2010-08-08T16:21:00.007-05:00

Do you have an action plan in place to help you reach your goals? Do you monitor it? Do you follow up if things aren't being accomplished? If you answered "yes" to those questions you are probably doing a good job executing.

Now, here's a harder set of questions. Has anything changed as a result of your actions? Are your customers or people better off? Are you tracking and following up on the impact?

Action is important but so are results. In many organizations, people are working hard and accomplishing a lot of work. Yet, the real changes to the business are few and far between.

Perhaps there is an opportunity to change the focus of our planning. If you are already doing action plans, you have the skill and discipline to execute. The difference is what is being executed. Instead of laying out tasks and deliverables, lay out a series of results or "impacts" to the business. Then manage your plan according to that. What's going to change? What will be happening differently? What will increase and what will decrease? That is your impact plan. And, your impact plan can be incremental. Perhaps your ultimate goal is to reach 1,000 new customers. Your impact plan might parse that into groups of 200 at a time.

You'll still have to manage all of the activities. However, you wont' stop once an activity is completed. You'll keep focused until the benefit of that activity is realized.

Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

Predicting the past

2010-08-03T07:51:00.001-05:00

The City of New York is considering suing BP for losses to its pension investments. (Reuters, June 24, 2010). They claim that BP misled them regarding safety procedures that led to the current oil spill. Perhaps that's the case. Or, perhaps, as with any investment, they took a risk. At the time the investments were made, the data predicted a positive return from BP. But then an unexpected event occurred which changed the results. Now they want their money back.

Despite all of the advances that have been made in analytics, we still cannot predict the future. We can do a pretty good job of understanding what's probable, but that's not the same as predicting. It's important to understand the difference and the implications of that difference.

Many executives fall into the trap of thinking that if they just had the "right" data, they'd be able to make the right decision. There's no such thing as the "right" data. There will always be supporting and contradicting data for any decision. And, the best data we have is only from the past or present. The best we can do is model that and make our best guess as to whether the future will look the same. And, make no mistake - regardless of how much data we have, when talking about the future we are making a guess.

Often the future doesn't behave in quite the same way as the past. For example, a company's stock price can vary greatly despite the company turning in similar business performance. A positive national economic report might drive all stocks up. In other quarters, there might be an oil spill. While understanding a company's business performance data is a good start toward understanding what it stock price might do, there are no guarantees. There is a broader context in which that performance plays out

Sometimes we forget that data doesn't occur in a vacuum – the context surrounding it matters. For example, a company did an extensive ROI analysis on one of its internal departments. They used the results of that analysis, which were quite positive, to justify and drive a new operating strategy. However, the new strategy sought to fundamentally change the operating model that had driven the ROI data. Predictive models are good, but they are based on past conditions. Changing context will also change results.

In The Black Swan, Nicholas Taleb provides a striking illustration of this:

"Consider a turkey that is fed every day. Every single feeding will firm up the bird's belief that it is the general rule of life to be fed every day by friendly members of the human race "looking out for its best interests," as a politician would say. On the afternoon before the Wednesday of Thanksgiving, something unexpected will happen to the turkey. It will incur a revision of belief." (p. 41)

Taleb uses the term "learning backward" in describing this line of thinking. He argues that the thousand days of historic data (of the Turkey being safely fed) actually provide a negative value.

"Consider that the feeling of safety reaches its maximum when the risk is the highest. But the problem is more general than that; it strikes at the nature of empirical knowledge itself. Something has worked in the past until – well, it unexpectedly no longer does, and what we've learned from the past turns out to be at best irrelevant or false, at worst misleading" (p. 42)

In this case a simple understanding of Thanksgiving is much more useful than the thousand days of data. While our world is a bit more complex than a Turkey's, we often fall into the same trap. I'd bet that the New York Pension Fund's feeling of safety (for their investment) increased proportionally with BP's exploration and drilling activities.

I'm not suggesting that we abandon all data and pull out the Ouija board to make decisions. Having solid facts and data is the foundation to good decision making. However, it's just a foundation. We still need to use our brains, our experience, and yes, even our gut. When we combine those things with data, we are more likely to make a good decision.

At the same time, we also have to acknowledge the limits of data. Too many executives get stuck in the illusion that if they just find the right set of data, they will make perfect decisions. In the midst of that search, they wind up making no decisions or are surprised and unprepared when their decisions don't turn out as expected.

If the data is accurate and reasonable (not just to you but to others who understand the context of what that data is describing) it is probably sufficient. It's then time to make some judgment calls and move forward.

Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.

Value-led scheduling

2010-07-27T21:32:00.002-05:00

What is the relationship between price and cost in your company? Does that sound like an obvious question? In many companies price is driven by cost. The company determines the cost of its product or service and then sets the price based on its margin targets.

But there is an alternative. Some companies start with price and let that set the baseline for cost. One of the most famous practioners of price-led costing was Henry Ford. In his book, Pricing on Purpose, Creating and Capturing Value, Ronald J. Baker talks about how price-based costing drove many of the Ford's employee and process-based innovations. As I've argued in the past, innovation is driven by constraints and starting with a price creates a tremendous constraint.

There is an opportunity to adapt these practices to execution. Research shows that most major initiatives fail to deliver their intended value. And, for those that do deliver some value, it is often long in coming. Often scheduling practices are similar to pricing practices. We let the inputs dictate the terms of the outputs.

But what if we reverse it and take a "value-led" scheduling approach. As with a pricing-led approach, the key would be to start at the point of value and work backward.

Perhaps there is a value-drop defined for each quarter. The leader's job is to determine how to best use his or her resources to deliver against that timeframe.

Imagine how this approach might change our thinking:

1) Outsourcing certain tasks would become much more attractive
2) Off-the-shelf solutions (i.e., reducing customization and tailoring) would be more viable and necessary
3) "80%" solutions would be better tolerated
4) There would be greater focus on differentiating high and low value features and functions

I regularly hear leaders talk about striving to think in these four ways. Yet, as long as milestones are effort-based (rather than the other way around) there is less incentive and need to change.

I've started asking a new question when reviewing progress on initiatives. That question is, "Has anything changed for our customer yet?" If you can't answer "yes" every couple of months, it might be time to rethink the content and timing of your milestones.

Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.