Management Craft

How to be a change agent.

No THERE's a cliche phrase - change agent. Like most middle managers feel like AGENTS of change. Sure, we all instigate/catalyze changes from time to time. Some of us more than others. But most of the time, we are needing to pick up the ball - someone else's ball - and make it work.

That's the nature of management - we make things work and we execute a vision, goal, strategy or change - many of them - that comes our way from somewhere else. The best middle managers get this and embrace this. It is what we do (and yes, we need to initiate changes, too)

So I might reword change agent to be called - change baker. Like that? We put the ingredients together and bake a change. Are your changes fully baked?

In any event, check out this post from Eric Brown called, So You Want to Be a Change Agent. Good tips for both change agents and change bakers.

Lead Big - Keynote - Your Thoughts?

I am working on a super-duper keynote talk about leading big and building the organization. Here are the main points. Your thoughts? I realize you cannot get the gist of it with bullet points, but do these seem like the right ones to you?

• What it looks like when leaders are actively building the organization. Painting the picture for what “build” and “lead big” look like in action and during normal business operations (critical thinking, collaboration, taking initiative, etc). Describing it with vivid specificity.
• Building the context for your leadership excellence. The importance of personal vision tied to your organization's vision and mission and how to align the context of your work place and department with your intentions.
• "Build" occurs when we make good, sometimes tough, choices about time, resources, priorities, risk. Putting discipline and rigor into your managerial regimens.
• Leadership at all levels - Building a build culture. Modeling the way, teaching others. Inspiring a build way of thinking.
• Building your reputation as leader – Four foundations for leading big for impact. Perseverance, humility, connectivity, and trust.
• Leading big together - How to build new approaches, solutions in a team environment. Best practices for teams approaching a business opportunity or challenge. Blue-sky thinking, fresh eyes, outside-in focus, the right questions, enrollment, invite a challenge, crossing the T’s, courage, leadership changes with the topic/situation.

This keynote is part of a larger program that will immediately put the participants into action working on a project that calls upon them to use these elements of leading big and building the organization. Should be very energizing and inspiring - with great visuals and reinforcements (no bullet points) on the screen.

If you were going to hear a keynote - what is the topic you would most want to listen to?

I enjoy keynotes because they are so dramatic and draining in a good way. I usually collapse in my hotel room afterward. :-)

How to Launch an Idea

I love this post from Raj Setty called, The Three Stages of and Idea. Check it out. I would add a fourth potential stage called "stalled" (doubting, overplanning, false urgency) and it could go anywhere in the process.

Be the energy and go where the energy is.

I tweeted this: Go where the energy is. That's my motto.

And fellow blogger, coach, twittering pal Rosa Say responded with a link to this amazing article all about how managers can create energy at work and why they ought to called, 3 Ways Managers Create Energetic Workplaces. I love this article, please check it out and then give her suggestions a try. Here is a snippet:

If you are a manager (and all business owners are managers too) assume the role of energy creator in your company. Change the title on your business card to Energy Creator; come on, I dare you. Whatever you have there now is probably more normal, and normal is boring.

Your greatest resource in any workplace is NOT time (or financing), it IS the energy required to make the time and other resources you have available count for something worthwhile and meaningful.

Face to Face Interviews - Apparently we don't pick the best people and meeting them in person does not help our odds of selection. Fast Company article.

I was reading the latest issue of Fast Company on the plane on Saturday and found this article very interesting. It is called, It May be Wiser to Hire People Without Meeting Them. Hmmm. The gist of this piece is that, while we think that meeting a person in person will help us collect more information from which we can be MORE objective and make a better selection, this may not be the case. The article offers some fascinating research that showed that meeting someone in person did not improve selection in terms of job fit and success. Here is a snippet:

Here's the reality: Interviews are less predictive of job performance than work samples, job-knowledge tests, and peer ratings of past job performance. Even a simple intelligence test is dramatically more useful.

What do you think. Check out the article and then come back here and make your argument. How ought this thinking change how we hire (if it should at all)?

Is that prized in-person chemistry important? Or more important than other notions of job fit?

I would like to see better culture fit assessments, too.

Your thoughts?

Raj Setty's Th!nkTweet Book - Very Cool, Very Now

Fellow blogger and writer Raj Sett has a new book out called Th!nkTweet: Bite Sized Lessons for a Fast Paced World. This is a great read and written in a very cool way - you see, the book is made up of 140 wonderfully saturated and salient points - just the essence, just the best stuff.

Even the Foreword by Guy Kawasaki is written in a 140 character Th!nkTweet.

I like the concept for this book and it would make for a wonderful pre-meeting team read. Or a great summer reading club book at work. You can pick up a copy of the book here (use discount code "ADD12" to get a great deal).

I love Raj's Blog and link to it often. And I regard Raj as a brilliant thinker - these Th!nkTweets are very provocative and helpful. Check it out.

Ground Rules for a Leadership Team Health Discussion

I am doing an all-day team discussion with a leadership team today. Here are the ground rules I am proposing for this particular group. I know I could have had many more, but I like to focus on those promises that I think will make the greatest difference to the conversation. Let me know what you think!

Ground Rules:

• Show respect by having the courage to be candid.

• Show care by sharing information in a constructive manner.
• Trust the process.
• Own your role in the team’s successes and disappointments.
• Take the feedback and conversation seriously, but not as a personal affront. Feedback is always a gift, even if it is tough to hear.
• Believe in the capacity for people to grow and develop – to get better where needed. I have seen it happen.
• Communication = heard as intended (hold yourself to the standard of communicating in a way that will be heard as you intend it).

What's your social media policy at work?

Here's a nice post from the HR Bartender called, 10- Must Haves for Your Social Media Policy. Check it out. I think the policy should be clear, but not so prescribed that it prevents employees from using social media for good reasons - like development. We want to encourage people to engage in informal learning that will help them do their jobs. And I agree with Sharlyn that to write a good policy, you need to understand the nature of social media - someone who has never/rarely participated in using social media should not be the one driving the creation and use of the policy. In other words, HR and training people ought to be practitioners of social media. Totally.

What's At Your Leadership "Core?" - Colleen Barrett, Southwest Airlines

I put up a very cool piece of video from You Tube over on Management Central (my new Ning site). The video is an interview of Colleen Barrett (former President of Southwest Airlines, now President Emeritus) by the folks at Wharton. Colleen was Herb Kelleher's legal secretary and jumped ship from the law firm where they both worked to help Herb start the airline (nearly 40 years ago).

I love this piece of video because Colleen talks about her approach and the core leadership beliefs they used to build the SW brand. And she talks about what's at her core in an open and honest way that I think we could all learn from.

In the interview, Colleen also talks about co-leadership - when you have a strong, almost unstoppable partnership with someone. I have experienced this just a couple of times in my career, and I still think back on those expereinces fondly. Co-leadership works when the core is complementary but then you help fill in each other's gaps in other areas. Have you ever experienced that?

The video is 25 minutes long, but well worth it. And this might be something you want to pass along to your managers and leaders. And for those of you in the training ans development profession, this would make for a very cool and provocative pre-work assignment.

So click on over to Management Central and watch the video featuring Colleen Barrett. And while you are there, check out the discussion started by Leigh called, "Kicking and Screaming My Way Toward Management," and offer your 2 cents.

My Interview on Spark Radio - Breakthroughs, Management, Hip and Sage

I had the pleasure of being Melanie's guest on her radio talk show called Spark Radio last night. We talk about a lot of things including management, staying competitive in the workplace, and generating breakthroughs. You can check it out here.