People hate reviews, but done correctly reviews are a terrific tool to provide individual attention, improve retention and show your love—tention reviews as opposed to tension reviews.

I won’t bother explaining the latter; everybody has suffered through a tension review at least once in their life and probably far more.

The biggest difference between the two is in the level of communication and frequency.

Done correctly tention reviews happen constantly and are called feedback. Think of them as a manager’s response to the “how am I doing” sign implicit on every member of their team.

We all crave feedback, which includes

• sincere strokes (given publicly),
• constructive criticism (given privately),
• career growth (what we have to do to take that next step), and
• friendly general interest.

Truly great managers add

• how can I improve,
• what can I do to help you, and
• how can I help our team excel?

Another part of review love is inherent in the communications necessary to setting solid, intelligent goals for each team member—

• solid because they make sense and are achievable, while still being a stretch, and
• intelligent because each person can see how their own objectives support their team’s goals, which, in turn, support the overall goals of the company.

Tention reviews also recognize that individual annual goals often need to be adjusted as a change in the company’s goals sets off a ripple effect throughout the organization.

And for those managers’ who claim they don’t have the time because of their real job, I’m here to tell you this is your job—cut corners or ignore at your own peril.

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Image credit:  ZedBee|Zoë Power on flickr

Honing “CEO skills” isn’t just for CEOs—it’s for every manager who wants to do a better job and every employee who wants to be promoted.

Sure, you may not know as much, or have access to, the same information as the boss, but don’t let that stop you.

It’s similar to managing a fantasy sports team, you know all the easy information and a little research usually gives you a lot more with which to work.

You can make it even more interesting and fun by recruiting colleagues to choose other companies to shadow and compete.

Whatever level you’re at, you may know a lot about your company already and a lot more is in the public domain.

What’s most important in running a company? Obviously, the list below isn’t everything, but it does offer ten of the most important things to get you started running the fantasy version of the company you choose.

• You may not be a CFO, but you better know your numbers: where they come from, how they interact, and where they’re going. This includes knowing/learning to read financial statements, annual reports, etc.
• No matter what your career path, know about your company’s market (no matter how cool and cutting-edge your service, product or e-concept is) so you can understand who buys it and why, what the competition offers and how your company products or services differ.
• Every successful company must have a competitive edge, whether it’s unique products/services, pricing advantages, company culture (think Zappos), etc. Learn how to define your company’s competitive edge and understand how to communicate it clearly to the whole company so that everyone is focused on making it happen.
• Clearly identify the goals of the company, then work to turn them into specifics. Assure buy-in by making sure employees understand the interaction among their goals, the company’s goals, and those of other people.
• Hire the smartest people available and give them an environment that enables them to produce; then watch your company’s strengths increase in direct proportion to your people’s growth. Remember, people are most productive if they know, and help determine, their work and the range of their control.
• Make sure that there’s an obvious and direct relationship between the rewards people receives—salary, stock, bonuses, medals, whatever—and the success of the company. The biggest rewards should go to those who understand the company’s goals and ethically do whatever it takes to achieve them.
• Create a culture in which the messenger is never shot; that way you’ll always get the earliest possible warning of potential problems.
• You set the tone of the organization. If you’re political, secretive, nitpicking, or querulous, then that’s how your organization will be, because, no matter what, employees will always do as you do, not as you say.
• Never criticize an employee in the presence of others. Praise in public, criticize in private.
• Companies are like tripods, with customers, investors, and employees each representing a leg. If you don’t pay equal attention to each the company will tip over.

Track your choices, decisions and actions against the reality. Give yourself a high five when your ideas pan out, and learn when they don’t.

You’ll be amazed at how fast the learning from your fantasy business pays off in your real work!

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Image credit: Ben Sutherland on flickr

Last Monday and Tuesday I hit a nerve when I described leadership as fertilizer and went on to say that the composted kind was better than that produced in a lab.

So today I went looking for good quotes about fertilizer. I only found two really good ones, especially the one from Rick Pitino

Since there aren’t more, I thought I’d invite you to make up you own. Read the posts (if you haven’t already) and share your fertilizer quotes in comments.

“Fertilizer does no good in a heap, but a little spread around works miracles all over.” –Richard Brinsley Sheridan

Failure is good. It’s fertilizer. Everything I’ve learned about coaching, I’ve learned from making “mistakes.” –Rick Pitino

“Spreading fertilizer on others juices your own growth.” –Miki

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Image credit: iChaz on flickr

Continuing with more thoughts on yesterday’s post Leadership Is Fertilizer.

Fertilizer is produced in a lab with scientists controlling which chemicals in what amount are used and then mass produce that particular formula in a factory.

Anyone who gardens knows that there are a multitude of brands that produce different fertilizers, some considered “general purpose,” but most with specific formulas to accomplish specific goals, including forcing growth.

Experts say compost is a better choice.

Compost is natural, produced when multiple kinds of organic matter are brought together and left to decompose with the aid of a variety of organisms. The result is an incredibly rich material that produces sustainable results without damaging the environment.

Leadership is similar.

You have the kind that is produced in colleges and MBA programs, learned in a sterile environment, with ingredients that parallel the thinking of selected experts’ mindsets and attitudes. Thus, the student is indoctrinated in a set of specifics and is often prejudiced against anything that falls outside those boundaries.

Leadership learned through doing—taking the initiative and accepting the risk of failure—is different. It combines a variety of experiences, good, bad and indifferent and adds a variety of organisms in the form of the varied humans that populate the organization. The effect of those organisms on the experiences of individual initiative produces a deeper, richer, more flexible form of leadership.

Chemical fertilizer needs to be applied again and again as it wears out.

Compost mixes with and enriches the soil itself, so that the more you add the better the growth medium.

In which do you want to plant your people?

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Image credit: ZedBee|Zoë Power on flickr

To thrive in today’s world companies need to constantly innovate; innovation requires initiative; initiative is another word for leadership.

Because initiative and leadership are synonymous, leadership needs to be pushed out of the corner office and spread throughout the organization; doing so will encourage growth, creativity and innovation.

If leadership is the fertilizer then culture is the water, without which nothing will grow, and people are the seeds from which ideas come.

By spreading leadership evenly through out your company garden and watering regularly, leaving no unfertilized or dry patches in which a seed will be stunted or die, you assure yourself a bountiful harvest that will be the envy of your competitors.

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Remember to share your favorite business OMG moments for the chance to win a copy of Jason Jenning’s Hit The Ground Running. The contest ends August 31.

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You may be a tweeting guru, but can you sum up your life, career or tell a story in just six (real) words?

When challenged to tell a story in six words, Ernest Hemingway came up with “For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.”

Starting in 2006, Smith Magazine challenged readers to write their memoirs in six words and the effort is still going strong. Here are three examples from the Smith site,

Ecstatic, elastic, eccentric, electric, ever-changing existence!

Dreams diverted; life proceeds. Embracing detours.

Lesser people would’ve given up already.

I wrote Birth, death, fun and happiness in-between because that’s always what I wanted and got from life—including obstacles and detours.

The great advantage six words have is to force clarity of thought upon the subject.

It’s easy to set up a place on your intranet for people to post their six-word thoughts—not once, but many times.

You can use it to explore your group and company culture, clarify projects and goals and for individual team members.

• Invite everybody to post their six word description of the culture.

• A biographical section gives people a place to document their growth professionally and personally along with specific struggles and triumphs.

• Boil down the essence of each project to six words. You may be surprised at how different the descriptions are reflecting the different visions of the project team—six words helps to get everybody on the same page.

• Provide a truly anonymous section for complaints. The six word limit forces clarity on descriptions of problems and can often give you a heads up before the molehill becomes a mountain.

Please take a moment to add your six word memoir, thought or description of Leadership Turn here!

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To get the most out of this post you need to read the prelude to it. It starts with Becky Robinson’s birthday musings that formed the basis of my post Monday and the comments that led to today’s topic. (Please read them if you haven’t already.)

We hear all the time about ‘living up to our potential’.

I know that every time I didn’t do what someone thought I should, I heard about my potential. It became the club-of-choice used by teachers and family to push me, but I don’t take well to being pushed and my reaction was to dig in my heels.

The same ‘club’ had a different effect on many others and became a driving force in their lives.

Different MAP, different reaction.

I didn’t give it much thought until I was in my early twenties and a friend killed himself. The note he left is one of those things you never forget.

“I’m sorry. No matter how hard I try I can’t seem to do what you want. I keep being told to live up to my potential, but no one tells me what that is or what it means. I don’t know how to do it and nothing I tried seems to bring me any closer. This is easier, I won’t have to try any more.”

My friend was a straight A student, cum laude high school grad, full scholarship to a top university, etc., yet he was still being chased with that club.

I’m not suggesting that potential should be quantified because that would limit it, but living up to it shouldn’t be a club or a judgment—it should be an encouragement and incentive.

I read once that the past is a series of paintings that can’t be changed, while the future is a blank canvas on which we dream, but the present is within our grasp.

I believe that each day is a blank canvas; if you live it to its fullest, doing everything as well as possible within the power of who-you-are-today, then your pasts will hold many positive accomplishments, good memories and far more learning experiences than regrets.

To this day, I still hear the potential club, but no outsider can know whether I’ve lived up to mine.

In my response to Becky I said, “Life is about choices; when you look at how far you’ve come you have the choice to see errors or learning experiences; to congratulate yourself on what you did or beat yourself up over what you didn’t.”

I stopped beating myself up the day my friend died, but I didn’t stop striving.

Again, it’s about how you choose to view your past, present and future.

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Post from Leadership Turn Image credit: lusi

This is the second in a series discussing whether Warren Bennis’ 13 differences between leaders and managers still holds in light of today’s modern workforce.

The manager maintains; the leader develops.

In today’s global economy the company that only maintains fails. And I think that applies to every part of a company—department, group, team. If the person in charge merely maintains, but doesn’t improve the parts and processes of the organization it will be passed by. Moreover, today’s workforce demands professional growth and challenge; the manger who doesn’t know how or spend the effort developing people and providing them with opportunities and help to grow will see only lowering productivity and rising turnover.

The manager focuses on systems and structure; the leader focuses on people.

This one really gets me. Today’s workers won’t consider working for a manger who doesn’t focus on people and in the event they do find themselves in that position they start looking as quickly as they can hit ‘send’ on their resume. Moreover, the basis for some of the best innovation and productivity increases stems from a focus on, understanding of and willingness to change systems and structure.

What do you think?

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