New Year’s Resolutions: A Hard Look at
Competing Commitments

By chipscholz | Published: January 2, 2012

One of my favorite books over the Holidays was Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organization, by Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey. Last week I mentioned it in regards to New Year’s Resolutions. The authors make a very clear case for a hard look at our competing commitments if we’re attempting to make changes.

It doesn’t matter if your goal is to lose 5 or 50 pounds, quit smoking or drinking, or become a better listener…New Year’s resolutions and other goals are hard to keep beyond the first month.

Why is that? Because the brain is tricky, and no matter how sincerely we want to break a habit, we have an immunity to change.

This immunity means that we are drawn back into doing what we’re used to doing no matter how strong our intentions. And yet, some people do succeed. We all know ex-smokers, ex-drinkers, and former fatties.

You can’t fix an adaptive problem with a technical solution. A diet is a technical solution to being overweight: eat less and exercise more. But the problem is greater than that. Unless you change your mindset (an adaptive solution), you won’t sustain new habits.

Einstein said that how you formulate a problem is just as critical has how you solve it. One of the biggest mistakes goal-setters make is applying a technical solution to an adaptive problem (according to Ron Heifetz, leadership professor). It doesn’t matter how much you change what you do, if you don’t shift the way you think, you’ll revert to doing things the way you always have.

To better understand this, I made up a grid based on the one Kegan and Lahey recommend people fill out, in order to formulate adaptive solutions to making a big change: Read More »

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Leadership Challenge: Immunity to Change

By chipscholz | Published: December 29, 2011

If you find change hard, you may yet underestimate how powerfully strong is the pull toward non-change.  As good as our intentions are, we don’t realize how strongly we hold onto competing commitments that prevent us from making real and lasting change. It’s as if we have an immunity to change.

Some of my coaching clients have brought up some goals they’d like to work on for the New Year. I personally find this a good time of year to review goals and pick one to work on a little more intensely than usual. So I went back and read a few of my favorite books about achieving goals.

One of the best is How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work; Seven Languages for Transformation by Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey (Jossey-Bass, 2002). In this book they first introduced the concept of competing commitments.  They brought out a sequel in 2009, and it’s even better! It’s got one of the best grids for planning out a goal I’ve ever seen.

Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organization, Harvard Business School Press, 2009. Here are a few comments and endorsements:

Review

…brilliant insights into the mysteries of the change process at the heart of personal and organizational success…Any leader seriously interested in developing new strengths in others — and in oneself-needs to read this book. –Daniel Goleman, author, Emotional Intelligence

Immunity to Change is a wonderfully original approach to a familiar problem: why many crucial change efforts fail. It shows how the core problems of resistance to change stem from the critical gaps between what is required and a leader’s own level of development. I know of no book that does a better job of helping leaders understand the commitment to change and how to put it into practice. –Peter Senge, author, The Fifth Discipline, and coauthor, The Necessary Revolution Read More »

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Leadership Problems: Clear Thinking

By chipscholz | Published: December 27, 2011

Clear thinking leads to decisive action. Too many leaders, however, rush to judgment and act before really examining the problem from all perspectives. In today’s organizations, if you’re dealing with simple and easy solutions, then you’re missing something. Problems are multifaceted and complex.

As I mentioned in a post last week, problems are both technical and adaptive, a concept that comes from leadership expert Ron Heifetz. A technical solution is found when the problem is solved by doing something differently. But most problems involve people and require a shift in mindset. For that to happen, you need an adaptive formulation of the problem.

As Einstein said, the formulation of the problem is as important as the solution. You need to see the problem clearly in all its complexity. Leaders need to see and understand the people who have the problem so that they can achieve clarity and find solutions that will last.

As well, however, good leaders don’t get lost in the details. They are able to see patterns and priorities and focus on what matters most. The bosses I’ve worked with who are good at this can take a deep dive into problems, yet come up with tough decisions that seem simple. They proceed with courage and boldness. If they’re wrong, they admit it, learn from it and shift plans. Bad experiences will inform you each time your thinking isn’t clear. Read More »

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Leadership Proficiency: How Clear Is Your Thinking?

By chipscholz | Published: December 23, 2011

If you want to become a better leader or manager, how do you go about it? I’m not talking about technical skills. I’m talking about ways to improve your personal proficiency, so that you become a better leader of the people in your organization.

It seems some people are naturally predisposed to have personal insights that help them improve their leadership proficiency. But most are not. Most of us learn over time… unfortunately, the time involved can be extensive. If you’re in charge of leading people to high performance, you don’t have time. How do you accelerate your personal proficiency and leadership development?

Authors Dave Ulrich, Norm Smallwood, and Kate Sweetman write about this in The Leadership Code: Five Rules to Live By. To invest in yourself and become personally proficient as a leader they recommend seven areas to focus on:

  1. Practice clear thinking; rise above the details.
  2. Know yourself.
  3. Tolerate stress.
  4. Demonstrate learning agility.
  5. Tend to your own character and integrity.
  6. Take care of yourself.
  7. Have personal energy and passion.

Clear Thinking

Let’s just think about the first one: clear thinking. Boy, is that ever an important skill someone in charge to have! But it’s like saying a pretty face is needed to win a beauty contest. All the contestants know that and aspire to have the prettiest, but what is it and how do you get it? No amount of skilled makeup is going to change a sow’s ear into a silk purse.

Clear thinking isn’t something you’re born with, although I suppose some of us are more predisposed. Most of us learn to develop it starting in school, but hopefully it’s something we work on throughout our careers. Clear thinking problems develop with each layer of mental complexity. By the time you’re managing or in leadership positions, you’ve got to juggle competing priorities and values. The complexities can be overwhelming. Read More »

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Generational Management:
What’s Good for Gen Y Is Good for All?

By chipscholz | Published: December 21, 2011

The idea of generational management was well expressed in Jamie Smith’s guest post this week. Maybe younger generations need to be managed differently than older workers. But I’m thinking, maybe not. Maybe we’re more alike than we think? (Photo credit Photostock)

For example, Ms. Smith mentions three ways leaders can help Gen Y in the work place:

  • Flexible schedules (why be in an office when you can volunteer, be social, or accomplish something else)
  • Frequent feedback (it’s not helpful to provide yearly feedback when it’s too late to correct the problem)
  • A sense of value in what they are doing

I would argue that all people would benefit from the second two of these management practices. Flexible schedules aren’t things everyone can handle well, and some companies don’t lend themselves to organizing worker face-time in a flexible manner. It’s a great idea, flex-time, and I, myself, love it. But I don’t think we can assume any one generation needs it more or can deal with it better than others.

As to frequent feedback, yes, it’s necessary and it’s good for everyone, not just Gen Y. We’ve known ever since the 1930 Hawthorne studies that frequent feedback encourages people to improve their performance. And just this year a well-documented study of what goes on inside the minds of knowledge workers proves the point again: The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work, by Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer.

People work better when they know you care about them and you’re paying attention to them. That applies to all generations. Maybe Gen Y need it more because they got a lot of it growing up, but the principle of giving good feedback frequently has been around forever as a best management practice. Read More »

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The Need for Generational Management:
A Gen Y Business Student Speaks Out

By chipscholz | Published: December 19, 2011

This guest post is from Jamie Smith, who comments on my previous question, Does Gen Y Have an Attitude Problem?

Warning: Soap box! (Photo credit Photostock.)

I am guilty of being a part of Gen Y. That said, please continue to read my comment :) . I am working on completing my master’s thesis (and I’ve paid my own tuition throughout all schooling).

I love the generational questions that have been such a hotly-debated focus as of late. In fact, it inspired my thesis: Gen Y Employee Engagement and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Several important summaries from my research:

1.  Every time a new generation enters the workforce, the negatives are highlighted. Don’t believe me, Boomers? Just ask the Vets. They think your generation consisted of slackers. What we find out, is that yes, each generation has quirks.

  • Boomers are known for their dedicated “face time” at the office and loyalty to organizations.
  • Xers are known for valuing family time over work time, and thus hate to have time wasted in the office.
  • Gen Y grew up in an age where the most precious resource is time. Get more done faster (thanks to technology).

This translates to needing:

  • Flexible schedules (why be in an office when you can volunteer, be social, or accomplish something else),
  • Frequent feedback (it’s not helpful to provide yearly feedback when it’s too late to correct the problem).
  • A sense of value in what they are doing. Read More »
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Leadership Proficiency: Walking the Tightrope

By chipscholz | Published: December 16, 2011

Leadership proficiency requires taking a hard look at yourself. If you’re  not grounded in your values and beliefs, and share them frequently with those you’re in charge of leading, you will not have followers. No one wants to follow someone they’re not sure of, who doesn’t make themselves authentically transparent.

This is hard. It’s easy to be the boss and tell people what they need to be doing. It’s also easy to come across confident and self-assured. After all, you’re in charge and people expect you to have the answers, to be competent.

But it’s like walking a tight-rope, in the sense that if you’re not asking questions all the time, you’re not taking in valuable information you need to make good judgments. You can’t be a know-it-all, and still be asking questions. The right balance is required for effective leadership.

It takes a large heaping of emotional maturity to analyze yourself, to be willing to learn and grow, to share you might not have all the answers, that you need other people’s help, and show that you’re willing to do what’s needed to become a better leader.

In the work I’ve done in organizations with some pretty smart leaders, I’ve learned that most want to become better leaders, but without letting any chinks in their armor show. (As if they didn’t show up anyway.) If you don’t learn to manage yourself well, however, you won’t be credible as a leader, and you won’t excel as a strategist, executor, talent manager, or human capital developer. Read More »

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Leadership Competencies: Know Yourself

By chipscholz | Published: December 14, 2011

In some ways leaders are going to have to become more personally transparent in the coming decade. They must communicate personal proficiency. They need to know themselves well, and not be hesitant to admit reality.

Hiding behind your title or office or your reputation doesn’t work, and I doubt whether it ever did. Nor does an authoritarian, command and control leadership style. It doesn’t work except in crisis situations and only temporarily then.

It’s not only the younger generation that mistrusts authority. It’s everyone who’s lived through the last decade of corporate and political scandals. People have long memories for bad bosses and ethical violations.

So how do leaders increase their credibility and trust among the people they lead? It starts by knowing yourself really well and being able to present yourself without the fluff and feathers. You can’t come across as sincere unless you become familiar with both your strengths and weaknesses.

The problem is that people can see their strengths and are more familiar with those, but have trouble seeing and admitting their weaknesses. It’s human nature.

In The Leadership Code (Ulrich, Smallwood, Sweetman), the authors distill leadership into five core competencies: Read More »

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The Backside of Leadership…

By chipscholz | Published: December 12, 2011

I asked a question about leadership competencies the other day and got a thoughtful response from a reader, worthy of sharing with you here in a new post. I’d like to stimulate your thinking on this topic — leadership competencies and values — and perhaps hear from you as well in the comments section.

In a post called Leadership is Changing, Are You? I wrote:

“Leadership competencies are evolving but they remain consistent. The contexts may change, but the need for strong core values remains even more crucial. What do you think?”

Elijah Lim responded:

“Agreed. Personal values that are not only espoused but lived-out, and are consistent with universal, non-negotiable principles, form the bedrock of character so essential for great leaders, regardless of so-called ‘leadership styles.’ The main reason for the apparent confusion and cries for help coming from the ‘ocean of change” is a lamentable dearth of solid character competencies/ values. Develop inward character consistently, get quantifiable results in self and others!”

My response: Read More »

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The Five Core Competencies of Leadership

By chipscholz | Published: December 9, 2011

By some estimates, there are over a half million business books about leadership, but when you study the ideas of the most respected experts, there is frequent agreement on the core competencies required. The same 5-10 competencies define what leaders do.

The authors of the book The Leadership Code (Dave Ulrich, Norm Smallwood, and Kate Sweetman) have done an excellent job of sifting through the mountain of published materials on leadership theory and distilled it all into five rules for effective leadership.

All effective leaders have these roles to accomplish, regardless of industry or context:

  1. Strategist – Leaders shape the future
  2. Executor – Leaders make things happen
  3. Talent manager – Leaders engage today’s talent
  4. Human capital developer – Leaders build the next generation
  5. Personal proficiency – Leaders invest in their own development

Strategist – Leaders shape the future. As a strategist, you answer the question “Where are we going?” for the people you lead.

Executor – Leaders make things happen. Your job is to help your people answer the question “How will we make sure we get to where we want to go?”

Talent manager – Leaders engage today’s talent. As the person in charge of optimizing the performance of your team, you answer the question “Who goes with us on our business journey?”

Human capital developer – Leaders build the next generation. This is where you need to answer the question, “Who stays and sustains the organization for the next generation?” Just as talent managers ensure shorter-term results through people, human capital developers ensure that the organization has the longer-term competencies required for future strategic success.

I have found that in the work I do coaching leaders, most people are naturally predisposed to excel in one or two of these four roles. Some people are big-picture strategists and future-oriented, while others love getting things done, or engaging people for high performance. Read More »

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