Every time I hear a pundit ask a (positional) leader about her vision or Wall Street condemns someone for not having a vision that they consider viable I find myself wanting to bop the questioner.

I’m not into visions.

Visions are what Sherlock Holmes had when he was smoking opium; they’re what dance in kids heads before Christmas; they’re what the religious see on slices of bread and potato chips.

There’s an old saying that the difference between a dream and a goal is a plan.

I equate visions to dreams until there’s an executable plan and management with the moxie to implement it. (That’s why I don’t believe we’ll see universal healthcare any time soon—lots of visions, lots of rhetoric, little management and less moxie.)

Of course, you have to use the lingua franca of the day when communicating and that means calling your goal a vision, which is fine—as long as you really understand what’s required to make it a reality.

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Communications are all important to the smooth running of anything involving people.

Obviously this includes business, since companies are no more than an affiliated group of people committed (in varying degrees) to progressing towards the same goal.

Brian R Nichols provided a quote that is a great overview of this in a comment he left,

“Simple clear purpose and principles give rise to complex intelligent behavior. Complex rules and regulations give rise to simple stupid behavior.” –Dee Hock (Visa founder)

There is no question that this is true as proved by the next two quotes from opposite ends of the clarity spectrum. Follow the first and you will be reviled by your colleagues, but implementing the second will make you both loved and influential.

The first is a superb example of what not to do from an organization that has demonstrated throughout its existence a brilliant ability to obfuscate in all its communications.

“Passive activity income does not include the following: Income for an activity that is not a passive activity.” –IRS form, Passive Activity Loss Limitation

The second is a bit of brilliance from a guy (pun intended) I hold in the highest regard. It’s just too bad more people don’t follow this particular advice.

“I think that no one, or very few, are born as good presenters. It’s a skill that you learn. The key is the 10/20/30 rule: 10 slides given in 20 minutes using no font smaller than 30 points. If people just adhered to this rule, they would double or triple the quality of their presentations. Less is more when it comes to pitching. You cannot bludgeon people into believing.” –Guy Kawasaki

But as important as communications are, never lose sight of the following:

“Organization doesn’t really accomplish anything. Plans don’t accomplish anything. Theories of management don’t much matter. Endeavors succeed or fail because of the people involved. Only by attracting the best people will you accomplish great deeds.” –Colin Powell

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CEOs have the spotlight today—about them, from them and for them.

CEOs have never liked anything that comes between them and the compensation they believe they deserve—not independent directors, governance gurus, sensibility and certainly not TARP. Business Week offers an interesting overview of TARP’s effect on CEO engagement, but it’s the readers’ comments that make the story unique.

What exactly does a CEO contribute to the organization? In an excellent article from A.G. Lafley, Procter & Gamble’s CEO, talks about the most important things to focus on, wherever you are in the business cycle.

Now learn interesting lessons from a Bollywood dance class and a parent who asks “Can our leaders dance?”.

By now, everybody has heard of Susan Boyle; in this article from Harvard Business Publishing Peter Bregman discusses how to find the ‘Susan Boyles’, i.e., hidden talent, in your organization.

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How’s your attitude?

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As a boss (whether CEO, team leader or any level in-between) you need to accomplish many things within your organization (whether company or team) to be successful, especially in the current economic situation.

Near the top of the list is the need to

• motivate your people (without breaking the bank);
• strengthen and diversify your workforce (often without adding headcount); and
• innovate (products and processes; internally and externally; large and small)

Big order, but here’s how to make it happen.

Start by looking inwards to be sure your MAP supports the program.

Next, keep this mantra playing in your head

• Read it.
• Hear it.
• Do it.
• Teach it.

Then implement it by

• building a useful library, both hard copy (used books are very inexpensive) and online, that includes classic and current information and runs the gamut from traditional to controversial to off-the-wall. Encourage your people to read up on subjects that interest them, whether or not it directly applies to their expertise;

• choosing “topics of the month” based on both need and interest, then encourage free-wheeling discussions on a regular basis;

• modify assignments as much as possible, so people can start to use, and become proficient in, the new skills about which they are reading, learning and talking; and

• supporting brown-bag classes (buy lunch if possible) in which they may teach both their new and original skills to others. Add cross-working assignments to ensure cross-training.

Remember, it’s a long-term fix, because there are no short-term fixes and the only thing you have that’s even close to a silver bullet is your MAP!

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Today is for all of you top dogs (TD) who tweet, all of you who think twitter should be called fritter and those who wonder when (or whether) Twitter is going to make money.

Let’s start with TDs who tweet or if you’re into politics check out this directory of Congressional tweeters.

For those who don’t see the point, read what Diane Hessan, CEO of Communispace has to say about how her own conversion to Twitter.

Finally, in spite of all the passionate people sending out millions of tweets, where’s the money? An interesting discussion from the faculty at Wharton focuses on the possibilities of a profitable Twitter; but one reader’s comment says a lot about people’s attitude, “SNS are all about sharing, creating, connecting and learning in a digital environment – it’s not about making cash.”

A common attitude, but one that begs the question, if it’s not about the cash why should anyone invest? Companies such as Twitter and Facebook don’t start and scale for nothing and users certainly are unlikely to step up to pay.

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“The real character of the person can be known by what he does when nobody is watching. … Feudal culture is one where there is one set of rules for the king and another set of rules for the rest of the people. … What we are seeing is not the failure of entrepreneurship. It is the greed, ego and vanity of some super managers of some large corporations. That is not the essence of capitalism. Capitalism is all about creating an environment where individuals can leverage their innovation and their entrepreneurial abilities to create better and better opportunities.” –N.R. Narayana Murthy, Founder, Chairman and chief mentor, Infosys Technologies (Hindustan Times 4/19/09).

Satyam has shown that greed is a human condition, not just the province of the decadent West, reserved for various ‘leaders’ in developing countries or politicians in general.

Murthy’s thought that the real person surfaces when no one is watching are akin to the age old wisdom of Plato when he said, “In vino veritas” (In wine is truth).

And I think that in these two comments you find the real truth about anyone who aspires to positional or as-it-happens leadership.

Leadership isn’t about influence or vision; it’s not about how many follow you or heap kudos on your efforts. It isn’t even about honesty and authenticity—the leaders on Wall Street were both in their pursuit of profits.

It’s about what happens between you, yourself and your MAP at three o’clock in the morning when you’ve had too much to drink (real or metaphorical) and no one is looking.

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“Don’t be fooled by the calendar. There are only as many days in the year as you make use of. One man gets only a week’s value out of a year while another man gets a full year’s value out of a week.“ –Charles Richards (And it’s your choice…)

“It’s not the plan that is important, it’s the planning”. –Graeme Edwards (Unlike crosswords, plans should always be done in pencil.)

“Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans”. –John Lennon (Which is why you should use a pencil.)

“You see things and you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were and say, ‘Why not?'” –George Bernard Shaw (One of the basics of my own plan.)

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Shortly after I started writing Leadership Turn I did a post about diversity, ending with this—

“Another way to look at it is that any increased spending on diversity development is an investment and will be more than offset by the increases in innovation, productivity and revenues. If spending $100 results in a bottom line increase of $1000, did you really spend the $100, or did you gain $900? $900 that wouldn’t be there if you hadn’t invested the initial $100.”

How do you define diversity?

True diversity isn’t just diversity of race, gender, creed and country, but what I call the new diversity—all those plus diversity of thought.

Think about it, if a manager really works at it she can create a rainbow-colored group who all think the same way—George W. Bush’s initial Cabinet was ethnically diverse, but their MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) was homogeneous.

It’s far more difficult to put together a group of totally diverse thinkers. Managers tend to hire in their comfort zone, but more and more that refers to how people think, rather than how they look.

So what should you do to ensure that you’re building a truly diversified team?

Here are five key points to keep in mind when you’re both hiring people and managing/leading them.

1. Avoid assumptions. People aren’t better because they graduated from your (or your people’s) alma mater, come from your hometown/state or worked for a hot company.
2. Know your visual prejudices. Everybody has them (one of mine is dirty-looking, stringy hair), because you can’t hear past them if you’re not aware of them.
3. Listen. Not to what the words mean to you, but what the words mean to the person speaking.
4. Be open to the radical. Don’t shut down because an idea is off the wall at even the third look and never dismiss the whole if some part can be used.
5. Be open to alternative paths. If your people achieve what they should it doesn’t matter that they did it in a way that never would have crossed your mind.

Finally, remember that if you’re totally comfortable, with nary a twinge to ripple your mental lake, your group is probably lacking in diversity.

How do you hire and manage diversity?

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Great insights for you today—all as true now as when they were originally written.

You’ll have to forgive Galileo; he wasn’t a chauvinist, just a product of his times. Feel free to add ‘hu’ to ‘man’ if it bothers you too much.

“You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself.” –Galileo (Early exploration of MAP.)

“I never met a man so ignorant that I couldn’t learn something from him.” –Galileo (Often more than from the educated ones.)

“Men are taught to apologize for their weaknesses, women for their strengths.” — Lois Wyse (Does that make out-of-control ego and excessive greed a strength?)

“The best executive is one who has sense enough to pick good people to do what he wants them to do, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.” –Theodore Roosevelt (True for managers at any level. Does the shoe fit?)

“I love mankind, it’s people I can’t stand.” -–Linus (I’ve always felt this way, but lately I’m starting to wonder about mankind.)

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