There are many ways of taking a career risk besides making over-the-top bets for a financial business or starting a company.

Risk may be easier to spot these days, because decisions are no longer personal; more often they are crowdsourced, whether that means your spouse, close friends or 500 LinkedIn/Twitter/Facebook connections.

While spotting risk may be easier, evaluating that risk is much harder, because determining whether a risk is worth taking can’t be crowdsourced.

The best way to decide whether to take a risk or not is through worst case analysis, i.e., think about the absolute worst thing that could happen if you do it. Then think through whether and how you would deal with that result. If you can handle the worst result you go forward; if it’s too much you go back to the planning board.

It used to work every time, but these days fewer and fewer people are willing to think independently, so the input you get is unconsciously based on whether that person could handle the worst case result.

But they aren’t you.

Consider Beth Comstock, currently senior vice president and chief marketing officer at General Electric, who took a major risk that put her on the path to where she is today.

“I was at CBS, and it was rocking,” she said. Then she got a call from NBC, her former boss, offering her a position that involved being responsible for media relations and marketing in the news division. “I think the job had been available for a year. News was not doing well anywhere…. People were saying, ‘Why are you doing this?’ It seemed like career suicide.”

The ability to perform worst case analysis clearly, sans rationalizations, means you need to take time to accurately know yourself—not just the self you project to others.

Only you live inside your head and only you knows what really goes on there.

Flickr image credit: Michael Coghlan

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here

Wally Bock, who provides some of the best and most pragmatic content available on being a boss, shared the story of Ron.

I’ve known many Ron-s in my time, both male and female, and the managers who hired them—hired them even when they knew better.

They ignored the red flags and rationalized away any information or signals that contradicted their desire to have the Ron on their team

Often the Ron came in as a star; the person who could save the project/product or bailout the team.

But stars can turn into shooting stars, since their reputation and achievements are often a product of their skill at managing up.

How many Ron’s have you hired?

Image credit: HikingArtist

Are you a ‘me too’ entrepreneur?

Do you dream about creating the next Facebook/Twitter/Instagram?

Throughout history there have always been too many products replicating or providing only slight improvements over what is already available.

The paraphrasing of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s comments into “Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door” is probably what made it the “most frequently invented device in U.S. history,” with 4,400 patents and thousands more that weren’t approved.

Much of social media and apps are the Twenty-first Century’s version of that mousetrap.

Who should you look to for inspiration?

Maybe Steve Jobs; while he didn’t invent; he took what was there (like MP3) and added amazing design to build his better mousetraps.

Or Thomas Edison, one of the greatest inventors/innovators of all time, “I find out what the world needs; then I proceed to invent.”

He also provided the quintessential definition of value when he said, “The value of an idea lies in the using of it.”

So if you believe your product meets the first criteria test it on the real world to be sure it’s in sync with the second.

Flickr image credit: label generator

The first major study of tiger moms is out. The kids have worse grades, and they are more depressed and more alienated from their parents. –Slate, May 8, 2013

Did you ever notice that most of today’s research on parenting equates closely with today’s research on managing and, given the difference in situations, results in almost identical outcomes?

When I first read about “tiger moms” I found the actions, such as shaming, very much akin to some of the worst management practices I’ve seen.

Like the negative effects of helicoptering mentioned yesterday, tiger bosses should expect the same negative results from those they manage that new research has proven results from tiger parents.

Children of parents whom Kim classified as “tiger” had lower academic achievement and attainment—and greater psychological maladjustment—and family alienation, than the kids of parents characterized as “supportive” or “easygoing.”

OF course, this comes as no surprise to anyone who works/worked for a tiger boss.

Flickr image credit: Marisa

Helicopter parents are a serious problem that cripples kids and doesn’t seem to end when they enter the workforce; plus it can have a detrimental effect on good managers.

The helicopter mindset is spreading, so that people who are inclined that way are also hovering over spouses, friends and colleagues in the name of helping.

New research shows that it isn’t a good thing.

It seems that certain forms of help can dilute recipients’ sense of accountability for their own success.

When managers helicopter most people feel it’s a form of micromanaging, but when the source is a parent, spouse, friend or colleague people are more open to it.

Unfortunately, the results are the same.

People end up with less confidence in their abilities, take less responsibility for their own actions and question their own competence more.

How do you help without either helicoptering or micromanaging?

The answer, research suggests, is that our help has to be responsive to the recipient’s circumstances: it must balance their need for support with their need for competence. We should restrain our urge to help unless the recipient truly needs it, and even then, we should calibrate it to complement rather than substitute for the recipient’s efforts.

Which, in turn, means shutting up and really listening to your child/spouse/friend/colleague to determine the minimum of what is really needed.

Finally, it takes enough self-discipline to allow them to fail and then pick themselves up.

That’s how everyone learns and grows.

Flickr image credit: Keith Laverack

Interviewing is a lot like dating; each party provides (positive, upbeat, biased) information to the other and on the basis of that they decide to meet.

They meet, they talk and sometimes they connect.

When that happens one asks “will you…” and the other says “yes.”

And they head off to change the world—or at least their little corner of it.

They say that men fall in love with their eyes and women with their ears.

Using the term ‘love’ loosely, one might say that managers, no matter their gender, fall with both—first with their eyes and then confirmed with their ears.

Unfortunately, their divorce rate usually runs far above the 50% divorce rate for real marriages.

A study decades ago showed that positive hiring decisions were made in the first 20 seconds of meeting and rationalized over the hours spent interviewing thereafter.

That explains a lot about the high turnover that plagues many managers.

The take away here is that if you’re looking to build a winning team (or for a life partner) keep a wary eye out for chemistry and charm.

Flickr image credit: bixentro

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here

Last week I wrote about the power found in vulnerability, today I have a different question for you.

What do you do when you screw up?

Do you

1. grin, bear and ignore;
2. rationalize;
3. deny; or
4. apologize.

The creed of authenticity demands you choose ‘d’, but in practice many founders are more likely to choose ‘a, ‘b’ or ‘c’.

Netflix’s Reed Hastings chose ‘d’ and did it with candor, solid information, no punches pulled or rationalizations and in a very public way.

“I messed up,” Mr. Hastings wrote in an unusually forthright September 2011 blog post. (…) In hindsight, I slid into arrogance based upon past success. (…) I wasn’t naïve enough to think most customers care if the C.E.O. apologizes, but I thought it was honest and appropriate.”

He made three other good points that are worth remembering

• “Don’t get distracted by the shiny object,” he said. And if a crisis comes, “execute on the fundamentals.”
• “…we don’t manage for the stock price.”
• “Executing better on the core mission is the way to win.”

Most importantly, he doesn’t see himself or Netflix as infallible and admits that another wrong turn could kill them.

There are a lot of founders who should take heed of his attitude and his words.

Image credit: HikingArtist

The traditional sources of seed funding are savings, credit cards and friends/family; now crowdfunding has been added to the list.

Recently I suggested Kickstarter to a founder, but he rejected it out-of-hand.

I was surprised, because both his idea and funding requirements seemed made for that solution.

But it was his reason for dismissing it that really blew me away; he believed it wasn’t a “professional solution” and would diminish the success/value/ of his company.

His attitude was even more surprising, since he is in his mid-twenties. I asked him why he felt that way and he said he frequently turned to more experienced people when considering business decisions, especially financial.

He said there were several financial executives among this group and that is who he queried. All held or had held senior financial positions in Fortune 500 companies and they agreed that having crowdfunding in the company’s history might make it difficult to go IPO. An additional two, who are lawyers, warned him that the law hadn’t caught up with the world and that crowdfunding might blur ownership in the event of an acquisition.

Listening to him, Monday’s post about the embrace of peer pressure to the point that opinions on everything are open to review and need to match what is considered “correct” as dictated by social media took on a whole new meaning and pointed out a glaring problem.

To which crowd do you listen?

Flickr image credit: Cambodia4kids.org Beth Kanter

Warning: today’s post probably won’t help you manage your group, work better or improve culture, but it is so darn cool I had to share.

It’s also a glimpse of the future.

It’s real innovation—the kind that actually has the potential to change the world—unlike the inane kind, such as Google Glass.

IBM research just released an adorable stop-motion movie, “A Boy And His Atom,” by moving individual atoms around and imaging them. (…)This breakthrough “has the potential to make our computers and devices smaller and more powerful, but also holds enormous implications for the way entire industries operate,”

Plus, you can see how the movie was made.

Kind of blows your mind, doesn’t it?

YouTube credit: IBM

Smart lady that she is, Karin Hurt of Let’s Grow Leaders organized this month’s Leadership Development Carnival by topic, which makes it very handy to find great info on a specific problem.

Being a Better Boss

Dan McCarthy of  Great Leadership shares his post, 6 Types of Bosses.  Dan answers the question we all wonder from time to time, “ “If all of this leadership development stuff is supposed to be so great, then why are there so many bad bosses?”

Wally Bock of  Three Star Leadership shares  The Disease of Me.  The Disease of Me can destroy relationships and careers. It’s easy to catch.

Collaboration

Jon Mertz shares his post, In Collaboration We Trust from his blog Thin Difference.  Collaboration succeeds when trust is active and trust is embedded in interactions, mission, connections, and progress forward.

Empowerment

Dana Theus brings us, 3 Ways Men Can Help Women In The Workplace on her InPower Consulting blog.  If you’re a man leading people in your company, chances are that you feel somewhat stymied in how to address one of the biggest talent management problems all companies face: how to keep bright, talented women from leaving the company before they make it into the leadership ranks. …

Change expert Bill Matthies discusses the connection between employee personal problems and the failure of their companies to achieve their goals on his Coyote Insight Blog.  His reminds us, ”To achieve company goals, help your employees achieve theirs,

Jim Taggart of Changing Winds shares his post, No Soup for You! Tales of Amazing Customer Service.  This post is about customer service and how some organizations create a self-empowering workplace for their employees to provide extra-ordinary service.

Tanveer Naseer of Tanveer Naseer Leadership  asks Do You Give Your Power Away At Work? and then offers practical solutions to help ensure your voice is heard.

The Power of Letting Go

Lolly Daskal of Lead From Within shares: When we are faced with problems the first thing we want to do is identify it, define it, examine it, analyze it and seek solutions.  What if we could try something new?”  Read on… Don’t Solve Your Problems.

Julie Winkle Giulioni also talks about letting go in her Lead Change Group post, Letting Go with Grace.  Excessive attachments in today’s warp-speed world shape not only who we become – but what our organizations become. Could ‘holding on’ be holding us back?

Tim Milburn of timmilburn.com shares his post.  How To Wait When The Waiting Is Hard.  We all have to wait for things. Here are some ideas to make the most of those times when the waiting is difficult.

Execution

Jesse Lyn Stoner  of Seapoint Center shares her insights on The Space Between Supervising Closely and Delegating  Most of us know what it looks like when you are Supervising Closely or Delegating. But the space between is large and undefined… and very important. It’s the space where growth occurs and relationships are forged. This post explains what leadership looks like in that space.

Susan Mazza shares her post, It Sounds Great In Theory from her blog Random Acts of Leadership. Just because something “sounds great in theory” doesn’t mean we can immediately implement it. This post explains how to lessen the gap between theory and action.

Mary Jo Asmus of Aspire talks about change in her blog in her post Seeing resistance?  Look inside yourself.  Resistance to change is normal. When leaders notice it, the tendency might be to push harder. Mary Jo suggests an alternative.

Randy Conley shares two key factors of high performance that are completely under your control. If you’re a leader, you’ll want to see how these two factors relate to the people you manage.   Two Things Your Boss Should Never Have to Talk to You About from his blog,  Leading With Trust

Performance Management

HR Bartender,  Sharlyn Lauby, provides a step-by-step guide to coaching an employee in her post, HOW TO: Have a Performance Conversation with an Employee

Joel Garfinkle shares Have to Let Someone Go? Follow These Tips to Make it as Painless as Possible in his Career Advancement Blog.

Career

Mary Ila Ward of The Point, Sound Advice for Career and Leadership Development shares her post, Know your Value.  Part of a series of posts on personal leadership, this post discusses the importance of leaders in knowing and establishing their value in the workplace.

Learning

Julie Winkle Giulioni of juliewinklegiulioni.com writes about Unpacking Learning. Leaders dedicate considerable effort to engineer training and development opportunities their employees. The problem is that completing the experience leaves the work half done. The real benefit comes when we help others unpack the learning from the experiences they have.

John Hunter of Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog writes about The Art of Discovery.  It’s a video with George Box explaining the importance of directed experimentation with informed observers to improve performance.

David Burkus of LDRLB shares Why Learning from failure Works Better When Others Fail.  There are definitely positive lessons to be learned from failure, but new research suggests that the failure of others might be a better source of learning than our own short-comings or mis-steps.

Neal Burgis, Ph.D. talks about Leaders Over Using Their Strengths in his Practical Solutions Blog.  Anyone who has ever driven a car knows blind spots are potentially lethal.  This holds true in leading business organizations as well as on the road.  Are you aware of your strengths and how to use them to your advantage without overusing them? Do you recognize your strengths & how you use them?

Change

Steve Roesler of All Things Workplace  shares his post  Earn Your “Change Chips” Early.  When it comes time to ask your people to make a significant change, have you earned enough “chips” to be heard and trusted?

Miki Saxon of MAPping Company Success shares her post Ducks in a Row: 7 Steps to Change. When you want to create change, whether of culture, process or something else, there are seven steps you need to follow whether you are CEO or a first line supervisor.

Culture

Chris Young of the Human Capital Strategy Blog asks Are You Creating an Avoidance Culture?  Perhaps you have worked for a boss who was difficult to approach – a person you actually came to avoid.  Chris offers ways to avoid a culture of avoidance.

Linda Fisher Thornton shares  15 Ways to Encourage Moral Growth in Leadership in her blog, Leading in Context.  She has compiled a list of 15 things that we can do in our organizations to encourage ethical awareness and moral growth. These elements can be applied as part of ongoing leadership development in any organization.

Organizational culture guru S. Chris Edmonds outlines three “what” questions that can help you get traction on desired culture changes on his Blog Driving Results Through Culture.  See Get Traction on Your Desired Culture

Lisa Kohn of The Thoughtful Leaders Blog presents Conflict is Good-5 Ways to Make It Even Better!  She presents a few simple, but not so easy, steps to take that can help make conflict more effective and productive.

Erin Schreyer of ErinSchreyer.com shares Three Crucial Ingredients for Leadership Success. Regardless of your position, title or experience, you need these ingredients to excel.

Image credit: Great Leadership