Management Craft

The Best Decision Makers are Reflective - Happy New Year #leadership

Many people set goals for the new year. I do that, too. Even more important than goals, however, is reflection. How did 2011 go? Of what are you most proud? What would you do differently if you could have a "do-over?" If your last year ended up being your last year, would it have represented your best living?

Reflection is critical for our growth because it is often only through looking back that we can see things that will shape our future.

What is reflection? We throw this word around, but do we all know how to do it? I am continually honing my ability to reflect. Try these practices:

• Take stock - define and list your accomplishments.
• Be real - acknowledge those outcomes that make you wince when you think about them.
• Remember players - this is perhaps most important - who enriched your life, helped you become a stronger and better person, cared for you (and visa versa)?
• Look around - how have your physical suroundings changed? What did you buy, get, make, and get rid of and do your things add value to your world? What's missing? What's unneeded?
• Notice how you feel - assess your vitality and the habits that have either improved or diminished your health.

Reflection allows us to learn - to do the next year better than the last. We all want this. New Year's Resolutions and goals are wonderful and can generate breakthroughs. This is especially true when they are informed by a humble and nonpunitive look back.

Happy New Year and here's to a great 2012 - the Year of the Dragon. Brave, bold, benevolent.

Peace and #Management

As we head into the holiday season and new year, I thought I would take a few minutes to wish you success and peace.

Peace of mind - that you know you are doing your best and showing your team love and admiration.

Peace in alignment - that you are in symphony with how you are leading people, leading your business, and leading your life.

Peace in progress - that you feel a sense of accomplishment and are moving forward.

Peace in the unknowing - that you embrace the chaotic nature of a full life.

Peace in humbleness - that you have strong self-confidence that is constantly informed and reinvented through learning from others.

Peace in restoration - that you know you deserve and need to recharge and that you enjoy this time and allow yourself this indulgence.

Peace in dreaming - that you are excited but not nervous about the future such that you can embark fully and without preventable self-induced distractions.

I wish you peace - a calm that is not settled, but is powering your work and your life. May you be compelled and composed, inspired and gentle, ready and reflective. May your resolve be steeled by passion and ownership.

Internal Branding, External Branding and Our Multicultural Strategy

Check out this thought provoking blog post from John Hawkins called The Business Case and Key Success Factors for a Holistic Multicultural Strategy (BTW, John is the new owner of my consulting firm, MPI Consulting).

John makes some great points about how we could and should think about building multicultural companies for a multicultural customer base (that is growing more diverse). I could not help but put on my OD and management hat and think about the ramifications of his recommendations for how we build and cultivate teams and the work environment.The external efforts affect internal practices - or they should.

This post offers a great example for how our external branding and business building efforts ought to link up and be supported by corresponding internal branding and organization building efforts. Do your strategies and practices help managers and employees develop a multicultural mindset? - Are your diversity intentions baked into your strategies, plans, goals, actions, and processes?

This could be a great discussion starter as you prepare to take a fresh crack at the new year. Encourage a generative debate on what might be possible if you created and implemented a multicultural strategy to support your external and internal brands. It's the perfect time! New Years realignment discussions can catalyze the energy and engagement needed to make things better every day.

Check out John's post and tell me what you think.

Happy Turkey Day!

Enter Your #Management Ideas for @human_capital M-Prize @hackmanagement

A couple of weeks ago I suggested that you share your best ideas and enter the HCI M-Prize (hosted by HCI and the Management Innovation eXchange) for management innovation. And while it is nice to win, the greatest outcome is getting engaged and getting feedback on your idea and sharing it with others.

See more here. There are 30 days remaining and so far 33 ideas have been submitted. Check them all out! For example, here is an interesting one called, "Culture Eats Strategy." And just a pointer - last year I waited until the last day to enter and I wish I had done it earlier because I would have gotten more feedback from MIX readers (a really smart and engaged bunch of folks).

Why not use this as an opportunity to collaborate with peers do a group submission? How do you capture, ignite, inspire, and cultivate leadership in your organization? How do you transcend hierarchical structures? How do you help leaders focus on what really matters?

Management is a craft and part of the learning process should be active and challenging. When we share with others, we speak from a different place. Our ideas develop and we reshape them. In sharing our ideas we learn so much more than if we did not share.

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Also, the fine folks at HCI are sharing the following discount with Management Craft readers (I get no cut of this, just passing the info along) for their Learning and Leadership Development Conference (virtual conference admission, no travel required!). Target audience: HR, OD, talent management, or training professionals, or leaders interested in leadership development systems.

Here is the discount deal from HCI:

"As we discussed, we would love for your followers to be able to participate in our HCI Virtual Learning & Leadership Development Conference on November 17th & 18th. We can offer our best discount which is $200 off the registration fee of $595. By entering code Virtual200, we can register them for only $395 for the full two days, plus they will receive a link to the presentations and videos on December 12th. Here is agenda information on our site: http://www.hci.org/2011learning/overview."

HCI M-Prize - Enter Your Best Idea! @hackmanagement @human_capital

Last year I had the pleasure of participating in, and winning, the HCI M-Prize competition for management innovation. The contest is put on my Gary Hamel's Management Innovation Exchange (the MiX) and the Human Capital Institute (HCI).

It is time for the 2011/12 competition and here is why I think you should enter.

• The prizes? Yes, that is fun, but not the most compelling reason.
• Contributing to the collective intelligence of managerial sciences? Yes, that is a great thing.
• The people you will meet? Yes, this is a BIG bonus, but comes in at reason #2.
• What you will learn? YES, this is the most amazing bonus of all. Participating in the contest means that you are putting your ideas and yourself out there and the process of articulating them will help you advance them forward. It is invigorating It is fun. It is expanding.

For me, my idea of the talent management cloud was something I had been working on in a variety of ways and in pieces with varrious clients. For the contest, I brought my ideas together, utilized great thinking from others, and created something that was more complete and effective. Having to articulate my idea for MiX readers and judges - who don't know me - was a great process and I learned a lot.

I am also very thankful to have met the great people at the MiX and at HCI.

Bottom-line. Check out the contest theme and rules. And then share your best idea. Contribute

One last hint/tip: Last year, many smart people entered the contest and the ideas were awesome. My idea was not necessarily any better than the others, but the judges told me that one of the things that put my entry out front was the level of detail I provided in my final write up. Why did this matter? The objective of the contest is to create a repository of great ideas that others can use to improve their organizations. The more detail you can provide, the more likely it will be that someone can take your idea and put it to use.

The Purpose of an Organization

I find myself worrying about hurricane Irene. I don't live in its projected path, my worry is for those that will be inevitably affected. I takes a village to build and it will take an even bigger village to help rebuild. Whatever the impacts - people, property, communications, transportation, pride, businesses and jobs - we will need to pull together even if we are not directly affected.

I have no doubt that we will.

This kind of togetherness (together toward a goal) is what our organizations need every day. I love this line from a comment from David on a recent post. He wrote, "The purpose of any organization is to accomplish as a group what we cannot accomplish as individuals." Yes, the REASON organizations exist is to be great together in the service of goals. Our organizations require our full collaborative effort every day.

And so, too, will our friends and colleagues along the east coast. The skills we bring to the fore during a disaster are the same ones that catapult our organization's effectiveness forward.

The Most Amazing #Management Articles?

I am working on identifying the most important/useful/provocative management thinking for a project. Drop me a comment or email with the articles or books or posts that have most impacted your practices or beliefs about management (in a good way). These do not need to have the word "management" in the title - sometimes it's an article about honey bee colonies that teach us about project teams.

Looking forward to your thoughts.

Here's an article I find interesting from Susan Blackmore called The Power of Memes. Totally related to management.

Control does not produce openness. Modern conundrum. #leadership

Check out this NYT OP-ED from David Brooks called, "It's not about you." Here's the money quote:

"No one would design a system of extreme supervision to prepare people for a decade of extreme openness. But this is exactly what has emerged in modern America."

Applies to workplaces, too. Worth reading and letting sink in.

Poem: Mom's Coleslaw #poetry Happy Mother's Day

My dear mother passed away four years ago from a stroke. Shortly after her death, I wrote this poem about her special coleslaw. Enjoy the poem and give the coleslaw a try - it is much better than store bought.

Mom's Coleslaw by Lisa Haneberg

Never a very good cook -
colorless shoe leather roasts,
canned creme corn,
ketchup saved the day.
Mom had three masterpieces -
sweet dark mushy baked beans,
tart apple pie stacked high,
fresh tasting coleslaw.

Slice then cube green cabbage,
dice snappy red apples,
chop ribbons of sweet onion,
together with a pinch of salt.
Mix mayonnaise with a splash
of milk to dressing consistency
add a tablespoon or two of sugar
coat cabbage, apples, and onions.

Mom used to make coleslaw
whenever the family gathered.
She chose a cobalt crystal bowl
to show off the slaw’s milky
elegance and simple taste.
Mom set a fine dinner table,
fussing over the feast’s
plates and platters.

As we cleaned out mom’s condo,
my sister handed me the blue bowl.
My turn to make Mom’s Coleslaw.
I think she’d find it strange that cabbage,
mayo, milk, sugar, and apples
would fuel memories,
a flood of salt,
and a tender sense of her near.

Fractured Workplaces - The Keystone?

I am doing a presentation at a health care conference next month on the topic of talent management trends and strategies. When I look at what is often at the core of most organizational issues, I see fractured workplaces. What's a fractured workplace?

• People don't work together well.
• Standards for teaming and partnership have eroded (mostly through inaction).
• Jobs may not be designed to reinforce what's really important.
• Managers that do not model excellence (often, they don't model minimum expectations) in terms of how people ought to work together.

I see fractured workplaces in all types of organizations, not just health care (but the problem does seem to be greater in many hospitals). Here's what I believe: If smart, caring, and experienced teams - who work well together - are put on a problem, they will solve it. When people don't work together, problems are generated.

Yes, some problems are solved in fractured workplaces, too. Take hospitals as an example, again. Because of their deep care for patient care, health care professionals pull together when needed and they often value the opportunity to save the day/patient. This is often done with some drama and strife. Here's the rub - many smaller issues are not addressed and many opportunities are lost. This kind of productivity comes at a high price in terms of time, energy, engagement, and efficiencies. For health care and all fields, this way of working won't work for much longer.

The keystone?

The keystone is the small piece in an arch that holds the shape together. Here is the definition from dictionary.com:

key·stone/ˈkēˌstōn/Noun
1. A central stone at the summit of an arch, locking the whole together.
2. The central principle or part of a policy, system, etc., on which all else depends.

I think that creating productive team members and great teams enables and strengthens all strategies and is the keystone to organizational success. It should be priority #1 and be supported systemically (defined, measured, built and reinforced throughout all organizational systems).