Last night I tried to explain to my daughter that I am a scientist. She laughed – way too hard. Her reply was “You are not a scientist, you are a business professor.”

That’s true; however I’ve always thought of myself as a scientist that teaches. In reality I am increasingly more of a teacher that practices science. Five years from now, I wouldn’t mind being neither.

If I’m doing something entirely different five years from now, it will mean one of two things. Either I got my ass fired for telling some important person something they did not want to hear (e.g. No!), or I found the courage to make my own luck and reinvent my career.

I’m very thankful to be what I am, but I’m not satisfied. I’d like my next five years of my career to be the best five ever. I hope to keep saying that until they have to wheel me out the back door take away my key.

What do you think? Please share your thoughts in the comment section below!

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Organizational silence is a shared belief among employees that speaking up is unwise. Employees have learned that when they share information about issues or problems, the organization reaps all the benefits while they bear the costs.

One of the causes of silence at work is the behavior of managers. Through the things they say and do, managers send signals that employees interpret as reasons to avoid or even fear speaking up. The silencing behavior of managers is rooted in beliefs they hold about employees and the nature of management. Elizabeth Morrison and Frances Milliken identify three of these unstated beliefs managers hold that can lead to silence:

1.     Employees are self-interested and untrustworthy

2.     Top management, not employees, always knows best about issues of organizational importance.

3.     Unity, agreement, and consensus are signs of organizational health, while disagreement and dissent should be avoided

These beliefs manifest in behaviors and become a self-fulfilling prophecy. If managers believe that employees are self-interested and untrustworthy, managers will either intentionally or unintentionally act in ways that discourage employees from coming to them with sensitive information. Employees who feel shut out of the decision making process and unable to express their views may respond by becoming less trusting of their managers and less committed to the organization. Managers then say to themselves and each other “see, we were right about those folks.”

If you are self-interested and untrustworthy, it’s likely you hold these beliefs about others. It’s also highly unlikely that you can admit to yourself and others that you are a jerk.

If you never approach your boss with bad news, I’d bet your employees rarely approach you with bad news. It’s impossible to encourage in others behaviors you don’t practice. You might have good open door rhetoric, but your employees know the truth about your intentions toward them and have unfortunately adjusted their behavior to conform to your real expectations.

The behavior you observe in your employees is often as much a statement about you as it is about them. If you don’t like what you see your employees doing, first look in the mirror. It’s not easy to identify and confront your unstated beliefs, but learning to continually improve yourself is the best thing you can do to improve the performance of your people and your business.

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I ran my second Twin Cities Marathon in October 2005. It was my third marathon, so I considered myself relatively “experienced.” Race day was unusually warm, humid, and windy, which sucks for a marathon.

About 6 miles into the race, I noticed two women about my age running together using a method I had never seen. They worked together to run a certain distance, then they would stop and walk for a precise period of time (they were using a stop watch) before running again. I thought it was crazy, and I scoffed at what they were doing because I did not consider it “real” running.

I was determined not to let these two women with their unorthodox method beat me. But at about mile 14, when the weather conditions were really starting to take their toll on me, they passed me and I never caught up to them again. They kicked my experienced and arrogant butt.

Even though I’d seen it in action once, I was still discounting the run/walk method when I ran my eighth marathon in June of 2007. A number of folks in our training group were preparing using the run/walk method, but my group of “real” runners trained separately so I never saw them in action. On the day of the race the conditions were once again horribly warm and humid. I ran my worst race ever, but a few of the run/walkers finished with very impressive times.  Never again will I scoff at the run/walk method.

There is a reason why the method works. Even if I never use the full method myself, if I understand why it works, I might be able to incorporate some of the principles into what I do. I don’t have to totally abandon methods that have worked for me and others in the past, but if I want to continue to get better results, I must continue to improve my methods and change my behavior. That principle applies to everything I do – running, parenting, teaching, writing, speaking, learning, and leading.

Is your leadership experience limiting your leadership development?  The toughest competitor you have to continually train to beat is yourself. Don’t let your own experience slow you down, or worse yet, disqualify you from staying in the race.

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I once again had the privilege to see Ron Clark speak last night, this time at the WIN Nevada Annual Lecture Series dinner. I was glad that the room was packed, because I’ve seen Ron speak before and he is one of the best speakers I’ve ever experienced. Ron’s message of purpose, passion, and the power of changing systems to change behavior really resonates with me.

In this short clip, Ron talks about how important it is to have high expectations of people, to never lower your expectations, and to hold yourself accountable for helping people meet and exceed your expectations. The more specific you can be describing your expectations, the better the results are going to be. If your people struggle to deliver,  first ask yourself if you’ve been specific enough. He’s talking about how to educate people, but everything he says in this clip is directly applicable to managing people and developing leaders in the workplace.

Ron believes success is all about being specific in letting people know your expectations. I strongly concur!

The video quality is not what I hoped it would be, but you should be able to hear Ron’s voice clearly and you can get a good idea why he is such a dynamic speaker. After you watch the video, please share your thoughts in the comments section below!

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How do you define leadership? There is no single agreed upon definition of leadership, but that does not mean it can’t be defined. Leaders are folks who practice leadership, so if you aspire to be a leader, you need to have some degree of clarity about what leadership means to you.

The truth is you have already defined leadership in your mind, and that definition is driving how you interact with your leaders, followers, and peers. Your behavior makes a very clear statement about the meaning and significance you attach to the concept of leadership.

If you will make your assumptions explicit to yourself and others, then you can test and continuously improve the things that you think you believe and value. If you can’t define leadership, then how can you expect to be defined by your leadership?

What do you think? Please share your thoughts in the comment section below!

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photo credit: julianlimjl

I’m not very good at networking. I love speaking to groups, and I love one-on-one conversations, but because I’m actually very introverted, I’ve never enjoyed navigating a room full of people.

I attended a networking event recently where food was also served. By the time I got around to finding a place to sit before going through the buffet line, most of seats in the room were already spoken for and a few folks were even seated and eating.

I found an open table at the back of the room where only two people were seated and put my napkin on the back of a chair to hold the seat. Then I approached the person seated closest to me and stuck out my hand to introduce myself.

She neither shook my hand nor even said “hi” to introduce herself. Instead, she looked at my hand, and then looked at the fork she was holding in her hand, and said something to the effect “I’m eating.” It embarrassed the hell out me. Even after everyone was seated at the table, she never made an effort to make a personal connection with me.

I did make an effort to read her name tag, not to remember her name, but to remember where she worked. I resolved right then and there that if I ever needed what her business sold I would make sure to never call them.

This person’s behavior hit me at an emotional level, and the emotion is one I don’t like seeing in myself. It was a stark reminder to me that our behaviors produce both attitudinal and emotional responses in others that in-turn affect their behavior toward us. Even when we are unaware of it, our intentions toward others are always on display via the things we choose and refuse to say and do.

I’m quite sure this person never intended to do herself and her business a disservice by publicly offending me. The incident has got me thinking about my own behavior. Are there things that I do while networking that send people the wrong signals? How can I be even more focused on the needs of others and less focused on my own insecurities at these events? I want to get better at this, because I need to improve my ability and capacity to connect with others.

What do you think? Please share your thoughts in the comment section below!

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Try to confront pretense and you’ll quickly find out just how much people love it. If we allowed you to call others out when they put on a show or otherwise waste our time, then who would collude with us when we try to hide our own elephants in the room?

Pretense requires cooperation; there is no show without the complicity of players, supporting players, stage hands, and spectators.  The rhetoric of “sit down and shut up” awaits anyone and everyone who tries to put an end to show.

I think it’s unprofessional to expect folks to ignore pretense. But refuse to buy tickets to the show or request a refund for the ones you already hold and unprofessional is certainly one of the labels you’ll have to endure.

I can’t offer a cheesy five step list to close the curtains on pretense at work. Stop being pretentious, and stop smiling when you witness pretense in others.

This show is not a comedy, it’s a tragedy.

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Hypocrisy is the gap between what we say we believe and how we are actually behaving. A lot of leaders give lip service to diversity and inclusion, but then behave in ways that stifle dynamic participation.

If you call yourself an inclusive leader, yet your de facto test of whether or not people “fit” the culture is everyone gets along, or at least never questions or disagrees with you, then you have an integrity gap. In too many organizational cultures, “fit” means welcoming with open arms anyone that is willing to become just like one of us. Long faces, averted eye-contact, alienation and vilification are among the wages of those that just can’t seem to fit in.

Is the cohesion you think you see among your employees and peers a mirage? Is it possible that someone, maybe even you, has simply taught all those compliant faces that it’s safer to sit down and shut up than to risk full participation?

The next time you speak on behalf of your group and pronounce that “we” decided upon or agreed to something, ask yourself if anyone in the group would have a reason to say “we” does not include “me.” If you are insulated by a club of longtime friends or “trusted” advisors, it’s highly likely that your esteemed participative leadership is really just a charade.

Despite your eloquent rhetoric, if you are not responding to your folks in ways that encourage them to engage, then you are not really listening, and if you are not listening, then you really don’t care about anyone but yourself. The proof is in the behavioral pudding.

What do you think? Please share your thoughts in the comment section below!

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On Saturday, January 8, 2011, a gunman killed six people and wounded fourteen others at a gathering in Tucson, Arizona. That seemingly has nothing to do with your personal development as a leader; yet, everyone seriously interested in leadership needs to be thinking hard about what happened in Tucson.

I’m not going to offer you an explanation for what happened, because frankly I don’t have one. It appears to be a very complex issue, and those have no easy answers. Anyone that claims cause and effect are obvious in this tragedy probably hasn’t learned anything new in a very long time.

Understanding complex issues and events requires disciplined thinking. Leaders striving for maturity in their thinking wrestle with the discomfort of admitting to themselves and others that they may never fully understand. Babes, on the other hand, content with the warm milk of their dogmatic thinking, settle for quick and easy solutions and then cry like hell when things don’t go their way.

You thinking about Tucson can’t fix what happened there or prevent something like it from happening somewhere else again tomorrow. But developing the discipline of thinking about complex issues will leave you better prepared to work with others to provide effective solutions to the thorny problems that have been plaguing your business for far too long.

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This video was recorded about 10 months ago, but I think the observations I make are still valid today. In it, I describe what I see as the difference between Web 1.0, Web 2.0, and Web 3.0. All the buzz is about Web 3.0, but for the small to medium size business I think Web 3.0 will be more hype than help.

Web 1.0 is informational. Your business has a website that provides information to potential customers either looking specifically for you or for the products and services companies like yours offer. Having a Web 1.0 presence is necessary for your business, but nowhere near sufficient because it is a passive, wait-to-be-found approach to doing business.

Web 2.0 is relational. Platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and most importantly your own blog give your business the opportunity to step out in front of your business and engage customers in conversation. You stop waiting to be found and instead go hunting for people that you and your business can help. Over time you can build trust, reputation, and social capital and through the power of word of mouth marketing you will find your business buzzing in places you never could have gotten with your static, Web 1.0 website.

Web 3.0 is anticipatory. The web is learning how you behave as you attempt to simplify and enrich your life with information technology (e.g. cell phone, internet). When companies that can afford it get their hands on the accumulated information about your patterns of consumer and communicative behavior, they will try to anticipate what you might need or want as you go about your day – and because of GPS enabled devices and your help, they will know where you are almost all the time. I see these anticipatory tactics as spam; smart spam for sure, but still an interruption vs. a relational tactic. Get ready for more just-in-time, mass customized spam.

The buzz might be about Web 3.0, but competitive advantage for most businesses will still be found via Web 2.0. That’s not going to change anytime soon.

The relational mindset and tactics of Web 2.0 are the cutting edge of content and inbound marketing. Yet as I survey the competitive landscape, I see very few companies developing and leveraging relational web competencies. If you are a business owner, that’s good news because it means you can still win the race to this new competitive space and force your competition to play catch-up with you.

If you will give yourself permission to do things your competitors are not willing to do, the opportunity to seize advantage with relational strategy, operations, and tactics is wide open. It is still very early.

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