If you read any of the hundreds of how-to books written about good people management and leadership, you’ll find great similarities among them. So, what happens during implementation? Why can the de facto difference between managers be so enormous?
The answer goes back to one of two basic beliefs that are formed and held long before a person becomes a manager.
People are intelligent, motivated, and really care about helping their company achieve its objectives.
People are stupid, don’t care, and will screw up if you don’t watch them every minute. Variations of A are discussed, lauded, and underlay most “good” management practices. Variations of B are rarely admitted, infrequently discussed, and can be largely unconscious.
Think of it as a scale
A
B
10_____________________0_____________________ 10
Do managers on the B side of the scale always fail while those on the A side are guaranteed success? Unfortunately no.
What does this mean to you? If you’re a current or future manager, you need to be aware of where you are on the scale and then decide if that’s where you want to be—information that is nobody elses business.
If you like where you are, do nothing, you’re all set.
But if you decide to alter your location on the scale, remember that change rarely happens when undertaken as a result of what “they” say, so be sure that it’s you who wants to change.
John Thain was lauded as a brilliant leader for years. but he fascinates me as an example of the MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) that is so ingrained and prevalent in a large portion of executives, especially in the financial sector.
Thain became Merrill Lynch’s CEO December 1, 2007. One of his first acts in 2008 was to renovate his office to the tune of $1.2 million. The redecoration included “$87,000 for area rugs, $35,115 for a commode on legs, $25,000 for a pedestal table and $68,000 for a 19th-Century credenza.”
Fired one year later Thain said, “They were a mistake in the light of the world we live in today,” Thain said in a memo to top executives dated yesterday. “I will therefore reimburse the company for all of the costs incurred.”
Search as I might I can’t think of any past world or circumstances that would make those purchases using corporate money acceptable. Ignored, but not acceptable.
Another example of Wall Street MAP comes from the wife of a securities executive who explained how an after dinner game called “credit card lottery” worked, “Each man would take a credit card out of his wallet and toss it onto the table. Then someone — usually their server — would be asked to pick a card and bellow the owner’s name so everyone in the restaurant could hear. The “winner” would pay the bill, which often tallied $1,000 or more.”
There are many more examples, but can’t you hear the echoes from the playground of “My dad can whoop your dad” and as they got older the locker room “Mine’s bigger than yours.”
The problem is they never stopped.
Lay and Skilling; Bernard Ebbers; Dennis Kowalski; Richard Fuld; Bernard Maydoff; to name only a few.
One or two could be put down to insecurity, but this is more like an epidemic of arrested development.
But it’s Thain’s words “in the light of the world we live in today” that are truly appalling.
They seem to mean that nothing has changed. The excess was OK before the meltdown and will be OK again when the economy is back on its feet.
This is just a minor setback—we are still entitled.
Do you think that segregation is an anachronism? A mindset and action we put behind us with the rise of the Civil Rights movement? Think again.
Segregated activities are alive and well in many small towns.
But these days, instead of turning on and dropping out like the Boomers, or turning on and apathetic like Gen X, kids get involved, even when it makes their lives more difficult.
“In 1997, Academy Award winning actor Morgan Freeman offered to pay for the senior prom at Charleston High School in Mississippi under one condition: the prom had to be racially integrated. His offer was ignored. In 2008, Freeman offered again. This time the school board accepted, and history was made. … Freeman’s generosity fans the flames of racism—and racism in Charleston has a distinctly generational tinge. Some white parents forbid their children to attend the integrated prom and hold a separate white-only dance. “”Billy Joe,”” an enlightened white senior, appears on camera in shadow, fearing his racist parents will disown him if they know his true feelings.”
Not only did they have the prom, with none of the dire consequences predicted and used as the reason not to integrate it, but Paul Saltzman’s documentary Prom Night in Mississippi became a Sundance Festival sensation.
Kids are impatient for change—but they always have been. And in some variation of Moore’s Law each generation’s impatience increases, while their tolerance for whatever is current decreases.
No question, men and women think differently—at work, at home and in every other situation.
And for years the argument has raged as to which approach is better; which thinking clearer; which to follow.
When ignored, the differences are the basis for miscommunication and the resultant misunderstandings, dissatisfaction, frustration and anger.
In rare shows of common sense, some companies focus on understanding the differences, sharing the intelligence across their workforce and creating a stronger corporate culture that takes advantage of both sets of styles and skills. The result is more employee satisfaction, improved productivity, and better retention—all direct contributions to the bottom line.
If you’d like to get a handle on this Leadership and the Sexes: Using Gender Science to Create Success in Business is a good place to start. Authored by Michael Gurian, best-selling The Wonder of Boys, and Barbara Annis, a top consultant on gender issues, the book provide and in depth look at two decades of both scientific research and real-world anecdotal evidence that different isn’t better or worse, or, as Gurian says, “I think what we’ve been able to prove over the last 20 years is that there is not superiority or inferiority.”
Homogeny isn’t good, especially in business. To interact and do commerce with the real world requires not only diversity of thought—gender, racial, ethnic—but respect for and the ability to interact and work together for a common goal.
The major part of Leadership And The Sexes is in the form of five gender tools that walk you through a process to help you understand the differences and effectively deal with them.
GenderTool 1 Improving Your Negotiating Skills with Both Genders
GenderTool 2 Running a Gender-Balanced Meeting
GenderTool 3 Improving Your Communication Skills with Men and Women
GenderTool 4 Improving Your Conflict Resolution Skills with Men and Women
GenderTool 5 Practicing Gender-Intelligent Mentoring and Coaching in Your Corporation
Written as pure brain science the book would be much drier, but the real-world examples and anecdotes offered save it from that and make for a more relatable read.
The need to acquire gender-intelligence is undisputed, whether for your company or yourself.No matter what you do or how powerful you are gender-intelligence will help you improve.
Finally, to give you an additional inducement to dig into this subject and absorb what it offers, here’s an interview with Michael Gurian.
I’m not a big fan of much in the modern leadership movement, especially the part that casts leaders as some kind of super person with MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) and ethics above the rest of us. (Jim Stroup has written several brilliant posts on this subject.)
A Knowledge@Wharton Opinion comments that “Greed reflects a failure of leadership…” a statement with which I strongly disagree.
Greed reflects a person’s MAP, whether that person is head of a company or an internet scam artist.
One comment said “Greed has been and is a prime motivator of behavior on Wall Street.”
But is Wall Street greedy or is it that its ambiance and structure, i.e., culture, attracts those in whom greed is the driving force within their MAP?
Of course, greed in itself isn’t necessarily bad; harnessed and directed it’s a powerful motivator.
But rampant greed unleashes a drive that steamrolls over all other considerations in its drive to satiate itself—which it never does.
Greed desires to have, hold and control.
The mistake is to assume that greed is always about money. It’s not.
Greed is about many things—food, drink, clothes, politics, souls.
Jeff Scott is the Library Director for the City of Casa Grande Public Library in Casa Grande, Arizona, and as president of the Pinal County Library Federation, a consortium of 13 public libraries, he helps guide a budget of over $3 million for the City and County Libraries. A technology advocate in a rural area, he developed the first free wireless hotspot in Pinal County and experiments with e-books and technology for the library users. You can find some of his writing at Gather No Dust, and at MCLC Tech Talk.
When we talk about leadership, we often speak of being innovative, having a vision. When we talk about management, we talk about leading teams and change management. Too often, leaders and managers are afraid to make changes or have a firm vision. There is a reason behind that, they have common sense. When you place your hand on the hot stove you get burned. In the future, you know not to do it.
Those who are innovative know that they are going to get burned, but they do it anyway.
I remember watching NFL films about the kickoff teams. These teams run downfield as fast as they can hurling themselves against a virtual brick wall of people. It is the equivalent of getting in a car accident every kick-off. One of the players was asked, “Don’t you get scared of doing that every time?” His reply, “Of course I am scared, but I do it anyway. Courage is being afraid, but going anyway.”
I learned a lot from that when I became a manager. I know there are projects that are going to be very beneficial, but after a certain number of changes and innovations, you begin to learn who is going to oppose you and by how much. What happens over time is that you avoid conflict in those areas. You are too afraid to make the change because you don’t want to deal with the consequences. This is bad. This is probably the number one reason things don’t get done in an organization.
How do avoid this trap? This is what is commonly referred to as mitigating risk. We know what is going to happen when we make this decision. You will anger some people, please others and the end result may be positive or negative based on perspective. Knowing ahead of time which burners will launch on the stove will lead to avoid being burned. Attempting to get ahead of the curve and realize the hot points will save your bacon. It will also allow space for failure.
When you make a mistake, everyone will know how and why and what you learned to avoid it again.
In the sue-happy US, cautionary tales from both sides of the fence.
Audioholics offers up a great story on why to think twice before approving your legal team’s less-than-cogent cease and desist letter to a competitor whose CEO just happens to be an ex lawyer who “…wants to keep this entire process completely open to the public…”
The response is worth reading, legally dense, cogent, and comprehensive, but my favorite bit is in a paragraph around the middle,
“It looks like when you sent this letter, you were operating on the premise that I am not smart enough to see through your deceptions or sophisticated enough to intelligently evaluate your claims; shame on you. You are required, as a matter of legal ethics, to display good faith and professional candor in your dealings with adverse parties, and you have fallen miserably short of your ethical responsibilities.”
On the other side of the fence, Sean Kelly over at Franchise Pick warns that you’re never too tiny to be noticed if you do decide to play games. “The problem with many non-franchise start-up business owners is that they don’t know what they don’t know. So, if you’re thinking about blatantly knocking off a trendy, high profile retail concept, franchised or not, here are a couple of tips.”
Entrepreneurs face difficulties that are hard for most people to imagine, let alone understand. You can find anonymous help and connections that do understand at 7 cups of tea.
Crises never end.
$10 really does make a difference and you’ll never miss it,
John Thain was lauded as a brilliant leader for years. but he fascinates me as an example of the 
I’m not a big fan of much in the modern leadership movement, especially the part that casts leaders as some kind of super person with 
Jeff Scott is the Library Director for the City of Casa Grande Public Library in Casa Grande, Arizona, and as president of the Pinal County Library Federation, a consortium of 13 public libraries, he helps guide a budget of over $3 million for the City and County Libraries. A technology advocate in a rural area, he developed the first free wireless hotspot in Pinal County and experiments with e-books and technology for the library users. You can find some of his writing at 
