“When leading a group, should the leader pay differentiated attention to individual members and the group as a collective simultaneously?”  This is the question raised by Joshua Wu, Anne Tsui, and Angelo Kinicki in a recent Academy of Management Journal publication.  Their study of 70 work groups in eight companies found that successful team leaders manage the team, not the individuals.

If you have bought the prevailing wisdom that managing the strengths of individual group members is the best way to manage your group, you could be making a big mistake. This study found that if you provide highly differentiated leadership to each member of your group, you will indeed increase the individual self-efficacy of those individual members. But the increased individual self-efficacy had a negative effect on the group’s collective efficacy, and a negative effect on the group’s effectiveness.

Group collective efficacy, on the other hand, had a significant positive effect on group effectiveness. The researchers measured collective efficacy with items that assessed the all kinds of tasks the group might perform, not specific tasks any single group member might perform.

Group collective efficacy resulted from group-focused rather than individual focused leadership. Group focused leadership produced group identification, which in turn produced a collective sense of efficacy among group members.  This is the type of leadership where group leaders specify the importance of group members having a strong sense of collective purpose and mission in working with the group as a whole.

Popular thinking on leadership asserts that effective leaders must not only inspire the group as a whole, but must also be attentive to the unique needs of each and every individual in the group. The results of this research suggest “that leaders who attempt to satisfy both individual and group needs may inadvertently compromise group processes and group outcomes” (p. 101).

If your individualized approach to leadership creates a group full of members where some have high self-efficacy and see themselves as “high potentials” while others do not, you are likely sub-optimizing the performance of your group as a whole. The differences in individual efficacy among group members affects how they feel about each other and their ability to accomplish things together. This is especially critical when group tasks require extensive interdependence among members.

When group performance matters, and people need to work closely together for the group to be effective, the belief that “we can do it” is more important than any individual’s belief that “I can do it.” If you lead a group like this, you probably want to keep that strength-based snake oil on the shelf.

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I screwed up today. I betrayed the confidence of someone that I trust, admire, and respect. Three other people I also value were touched by my ugly transgression.

I got lazy with e-mail. I meant to forward an article to four people, and instead of starting a new e-mail I grabbed the last e-mail I had from one of them and added the other three addresses to it. I did not even think to delete the text from the e-mail I grabbed, and it contained information shared in confidence.

I wish I could crawl under a rock.

I’ve already apologized to all involved, but somehow that’s just not good enough. I know they will forgive me because they are all good, professional people, but I don’t feel I merit their consideration. One of them told me “this too shall pass”, and while I know that is true I still feel slimy.

It’s more than just a technical mistake. It is with me a fundamental flaw in my character that I have been dealing with for decades. As much as I preach lifting others up, I am very competitive and very direct. I believe in those principles, but sometimes I violate other core principles of professionalism and basic decency along the way. I loathe hubris, but that beast is still just as much alive and well within me as it is within anyone.

I need to pay more attention to the plank in my own eye.

Friends, please forgive me.

You can’t change the past, but if you don’t learn from it you are trapped into recreating it and all its problems. The only way to generate a unique and flourishing future for your organization is to foster a community of continual learning.

Peter Senge’s first law of The Fifth Discipline is today’s problems come from yesterday’s solutions. The problem you inherited today is likely the result of a series of solutions that seemed right at the time made by people that are probably no longer around.

Your challenge is to learn to avoid sowing the seeds of tomorrow’s problems with today’s solutions. To do that, you are going to have to train your mind to identify and comprehend the complex chain of causal factors that led to the effects that now consume your time and threaten your operations. Systems thinking is a discipline that you can – must – develop over time.

It’s foolish to behave as if any decision you make today will not have unintended consequences. Part of your decision making process has to be anticipating the problems that today’s solutions might cause. The unintended consequences should be part of the documentation of any decision. This will help the learning of those that inherit the problems you created.

When they rightly ask “what were they thinking?” they should be able to find your assumptions and identify the ones that held true and the ones that proved incorrect. If you have people working for you that are unwilling to examine their assumptions or that stubbornly resist learning from the failure of untenable assumptions, do everything you can to help them find a good job with your competitors.

Competitive advantage belongs to those that understand why things work or do not work.

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Respect is a gift we give ourselves by the way we treat others. Remarkable leaders never demand that others respect them and their position. Instead, remarkable leaders focus on their responsibility to behave in respectful ways towards others, especially those with less power and position.

Remarkable leaders owe it to themselves to engage with others respectfully, and the credit returns to them abundantly in the form of organizational effectiveness and individual growth and well-being.

In her wonderful book “Energize Your Workplace,” Jane Dutton says the following about respectful engagement:

When others engage us respectfully, they reflect an image that is positive and valued. They create a sense of social dignity that confirms our worth and even our sense of competence. In so doing, they help us create a secure basis for seeking out connection to others. Respectful engagement thus empowers and energizes us, creating a heightened sense of our capacity to act both in relation to other people and with respect to ourselves. By the same token, acts of disrespectful engagement reflect an image of a person who is of limited value and worth. Not only do they sap our self-confidence, they encourage us to withdraw and withhold, moving away from rather than connecting with other people. Respectful engagement creates high quality connection and high quality connection creates respectful engagement. It is a powerful virtuous cycle. (pp. 25-26).

How we treat others matters to them. Because it matters to them, it affects us and everything we hope to accomplish with our leadership.

Show me a leader that behaves as if how she/he treats others does not matter and I will show you a fool.

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I am drinking a cup of latte from Peet’s coffee on campus as I write this follow-up.  Recall that I lamented about the vanishing cup of $.99 coffee at Peet’s before switching over to Starbucks, then I talked about how someone in management here on campus read my blog post and provided some impressive service recovery.

Today I went back to Peet’s for the first time to give them another chance. Much to my great surprise, the manager, Michelle, recognized me and introduced herself. We had a nice conversation about some of my assumptions about the $.99 cup of Joe.

Turns out I was probably wrong.

I assumed that Joe was Joe, since the customer sees no differential pricing on coffee based on the bean. My assumption was that Peet’s charged their stores the same price for a case of coffee regardless of the bean. Michelle told me that the case of coffee they sell for $.99 costs much less than other beans they carry. So it makes sense that when they run out of that bean they would discontinue the more affordable Joe.

I still don’t completely get it, but Michelle’s personal touch and the good coffee has me in a state of mind where for the time being, I really don’t care. I’m back as customer of Peet’s Coffee.

Give your customers a reason to find fault and they will. Impress them with great product and service and they won’t be as quick to notice your imperfections in their peripheral field of view.

In case you are wondering, the .$99 cup of coffee was on the menu today.

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My new article entitled “Learning to Brand” is now live on The Student Branding Blog. Borrowing a concept from Peter Senge, I suggest that the most successful personal branders will be those that can learn faster than their competitors.

BTW, in the video I am sitting on a tree stump that had some geothermal activity under it, which is why you see steam seem to rise out of nowhere.

Check it out!

It can be hell to be behind a paradigm shift instead of creating one.  Most people become paralyzed by the fear and uncertainty of seismic change. Others focus on predicting as much as possible before it happens in an attempt to react optimally. Very few learn to continually create the future they desire.

The parable of the boiled frog is a lesson of maladaptation to gradually building threats to survival. As Peter Senge describes in his classic book “The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of The Learning Organization“:

If you place a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will immediately try to scramble out. But if you place the frog in room temperature water, and don’t scare him, he’ll stay put. Now, if the pot sits on a heat source, and if you gradually turn up the temperature, something very interesting happens. As the temperature rises from 70 to 80 degrees F., the frog will do nothing. In fact, he will show every sign of enjoying himself. As the temperature gradually increases, the frog will become groggier and groggier, until he is unable to climb out of the pot. Though there is nothing restraining him, the frog will sit there and boil. Why? Because the frog’s internal apparatus for sensing threats to survival is geared to sudden changes in his environment, not to slow, gradual changes.” (p. 22).

Paradigms are shifting in almost every industry sector. In my industry, higher education, we are seeing change we never thought we would see. Last week, my university announced that because of massive state budge cuts, it would close it’s College of Agriculture and shut down several other degree programs. In the College of Business, we are being asked to eliminate a degree in Supply Chain Management and let go of three tenured professors.

In education, I think we face a simple choice. We can take the initiative and re-create the paradigm ourselves, or we can let others create the paradigm for us.

If we dig in our heals and resist, we will squander the greatest opportunity for generative change that most of us have ever seen. I’d rather lose a battle over the budget than the war for the next paradigm.

When the temperature of change rises in your industry – JUMP! Don’t sit there and boil with the rest of the stupid frogs. The only real restraints are between your ears.

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Leadership And Real Changes

There is a lot of buzz about Web 3.0, a term used to describe how the Web is predicted to evolve in the very near future.

Web 1.0 is informational. Businesses created websites to provide customers with information about products and services. These Web 1.0 websites are essentially electronic billboards; digital megaphones to blast to anyone landing on the site the superiority of the products and services for sale.

Web 2.0 is relational. Websites continue to provide information, but they include mechanisms that facilitate listening to and conversing with customers. These sites allow businesses to build trusting, respectful, and responsive relationships with customers. Instead of interrupting and spamming customers, Web 2.0 technology and process provides customers the ability to authorize businesses the permission to build relationships with them.

Web 3.0 is anticipatory. Ubiquitous, interconnected technologies learn the individual patterns and preferences of customers.  Because mobile technologies will allow businesses to know where we are, they can use their increasing knowledge of individual preferences to anticipate what we might need at any given moment and offer real-time suggestions on options to help us meet our needs.

For your business to survive and thrive, you will need to develop the competencies to serve your customers with a Web 3.0 mindset.

If you want your employees to be able to excel at learning and anticipating the needs of your customers, you are going to have learn and anticipate the needs of your employees. Leadership 1.0 is unable and unwilling to facilitate employee 3.0.

Your customers are changing. Your employees are changing. If YOU don’t learn to change your leadership style, you and your business are in trouble.

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