Tag Archive for: leadership

The 80/20 Rule of Leadership

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There’s an old leadership theory of human behavior called the 80/20 rule, which states that 20% of the people in an organization produce about 80% of the results, while 80% produce about 20% of the results. If you manage sales people or volunteers or a team of employees where you expect results, then you are likely to find that these numbers – give or take 10% or so – to be accurate. In terms of the culture, about 20% if the employees create about 80% of the culture, and visa versa. This can happen at any level. I have seen front line service people, passionate about their work and about service, have a greater impact on the culture than a senior executive. The pull will always be toward the group or the individuals who are underachieving by your standards, or to attempt to change the ratio to prove to yourself that you can be a leader who can get the same results from all of your employees or volunteers.

What I’ve learned is not to mess too much with the ratio. It seems to be human nature. Even if you go and fire the 80% I’d bet that you will find that 80% of the remaining group will drift into being the under-performing group.

Rather than change the ratio, I’ve learned an important leadership principle to respond to the 80/20 rule: be conscious of spending 80% of your time with the 20% of the result producers, and 20% of your time with the under performers. Remember: the pull will always be toward to people who complain the most and who produce the least, so be careful not to get drained by the energy of this group. Your “top 20%,” on the other hand, are what I call your “critical employees,” the people who ultimately keep the organization running, the leaders (who may or may not have a title) at every level. Keep your primary focus on these people. Make sure they are recognized, supported, and duly rewarded, because they are critical to your future.

I was recently facilitating a leadership development program with a group of managers who run laboratories in our health care system. This was a group of scientists developing the people skills for building a strong organizational culture. As I drew white dots on a slide of an organizational chart representing these “critical employees,” a manager jumped up and said, “I know what those white dots are.They are the white blood cells, the cells of the immune system that defend the body against both infectious disease and foreign materials.” These cells, called Leukocytes, are found throughout the body, making up about 1% of the blood of a healthy person. We all concluded that, considering that the body only needs about 1% of its blood to fight off toxic substances in the body, leaders are fortunate that they have 20% of their employees to develop a healthy organizational immune system. If you want a healthy, vibrant workplace, take good care of your organizational immune system.

On another note, while thinking about white blood cells and immune systems, I came across the best article I have read yet on the fear of the H1N1 flu that is sweeping across our country. This article, was written by a good friend of mine, Brooks Tower, who is not a medical person, but he is a thoughtful person. While we all have to be concerned and take whatever precautions we can to do our part to prevent the spread of any kind of virus, reading this article may give you a new perspective on H1N1.

Finding Balance And Health In Your Culture: Wisdom From A Yogi

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Did you ever have a bad day where everything seemed to go wrong? Although our tendency is to blame something in our external environment, it is the state of mind that you bring to your work or your life that determines whether the day is “bad” or “good”. You can train your nervous system to be depressed or angry or pessimistic, just as you can train yourself to be hopeful, loving, and optimistic. That is, you can teach yourself to let life get you down or choose to use whatever life sends you to find a lesson that will move you forward.

The same is true with cultures. Have you ever been in an environment that is not as productive as it could be or living up to it’s potential? How often have you been in an organization where you found that there is far more talent, brainpower, wisdom, and resourcefulness than the job required or even allowed? Just as people can be ruled by emotions, cultures can take on an emotive “state,” because cultures are made up of people.

Culture is essentially an interplay of energy and yoga, the practice of moving into stillness and focusing your energy, can be instructive in understanding organizational culture. According to yoga there are three basic qualities or energies: rajas, tamas and sattva. Rajas is the energy of action, change and movement, while Tamasic energy is associated with a state of inactivity and inertia, heaviness and darkness. Sattva is light and uplifting and indicates a state of harmony and balance.

In order to find balance, we must start on a journey towards sattva. We do need rajas and tamas energy, but in their proper proportion and at their proper time. If we didn’t have rajas we would not have energy to move towards sattva.  If we have only tamas, we become “lazy” and never get anything done. However, we all want more balance and harmony in our lives, both corporately and personally, so we must ingest more sattva both mentally and physically.

In Yoga, as in life, the greatest obstacle to our growth towards a state of sattva is the continuous fluctuations of our minds.  The mind is always busy and it can flow in two directions – upwards towards sattva or downwards towards negativity. Patanjali, a great yoga sage from 200 BC gives a simple method for turning to sattva. He says when negative thoughts are encountered we must immediately replace them with the opposite positive.  Simple, but not easy! This is a practice of the mind. It is hard work and takes practice!

This has many implications for corporate culture.  We must not entertain negative thinking.  Gossip, slanderous talk and negativity of any kind work to undermine a positive mental framework, and makes most of us ineffective and generally miserable. A first step, and something infinitely practical is to breathe. A simple practice of mindful, deep breathing can be performed in any office, anytime of the day, in any meeting, at any moment, and thankfully it can be instituted without scrutiny or negative consequence.

We all make a difference to the environments we live and work in. Having ways to connect with sattvic energy can be a way to positively impact those around you. A healthy, balanced culture starts with you.

Note: Thanks to Jeff Lichty, my Yoga teacher (www.ashtanga-yoga-victoria.com) for writing this article with me!

Transforming An Organization Into A Community: A Leadership Vision

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Leadership is about transforming your culture into a community. A community is a place where work is meaningful, not just menial, where you support people to be genuine contributors, not just “task doers,” where people are honestly valued, rather than used up, where you invite intentional conversations, not just superficial exchanges.

Communities are places where “units” are transformed into “neighborhoods”, where there is a sense of belonging, shared vision, pride, ownership, and a commitment to service; where “command performance” is replaced with a bone deep commitment to courageously seek participation.

Community is where paint-by-number management programs are replaced with a profound, yet simple respect for realness, honesty, and respect for the dignity of everyone, which in turn results in an authentic expression of the human spirit.

Fostering this kind of culture is akin to being a gardener. While results are paramount, culture can’t be legislated, controlled, motivated, or coerced. No plants ever grow better because you demand that they do so or because you threaten them. Plants grow only when they have the right conditions and are given proper care. Creating the space and providing the proper nourishment for plants – and people as well – is a matter of continual consideration and vigilance.

Three questions emerge from this vision for your consideration and reflection.

  1. Who is responsible for creating this kind of culture in your workplace?
  2. Who are the leaders in your organization?
  3. How do you go about transforming the culture of an organization?

 

The 80% Principle Of Leadership: Managing By Making Room

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An astute executive passed along some good wisdom not long ago. “The problem with leaders today is that they expect 100% from their good people, and not enough from their poor performers.” This statement initially puzzled me, but after he explained what he meant, I was inspired.

Let me illustrate the principle with an example. This weekend I asked my sales manager to work three hours overtime to participate in a webinar on social media and give me an assessment of what the instructor was offering. I rarely ask Laurie to work overtime, but she jumped at the opportunity to go the extra mile. When considering the “80% Principle”, there are three potential scenarios when you ask an employee to go the extra mile. If you are stretching people to the max, expecting 100% from them all the time, pushing them to do more with less, thus demanding that they are on 100% of the time, and then ask them to take on an additional project that requires overtime, you have no room for the additional request. In this case they will probably do it for you, but likely with either resentment or stress or both. And if you have been expecting your good people to give 120% and then ask them to work overtime on a project, they likely start looking elsewhere for a job (if they haven’t already).

The alternative is to give them some room on a day-to-day basis. Don’t stretch them to the maximum. Only expect 80% so there is some space, some room for creativity, innovation, engagement, fulfillment, or connection. You will also likely find that when you only expect 80% from your best people, you’re going to get 100% anyway. But that additional 20+% comes from within them, not from you. This kind of relationship breeds commitment and loyalty from those you depend on. Laurie is a part of this third scenario. I expect 80%, she gives 100%, and is always willing to go to 120% when the need arises. The second part of this formula has to do with underachievers, those who are succeeding, but at less than 80% of their capacity. It is important to get tougher with these people. Don’t ignore them. You get tougher through clearer expectations. Fit people; don’t fix people. Get people into the right roles and then get them to 80%, not 100. But if, through coaching and support, this doesn’t work, then help them move on in their career.

Three actions:

  1. Track your own energy level. Take a careful inventory of yourself: How stretched do you feel? How much room is in your work life (or personal life) to slow down, be creative, think, connect – with your staff, your colleagues, your customers? Have the courage to respectfully negotiate for some space in your work life to express what matters most. If you are stretched to the max, you will convey tension in all your relationships.
  2. Have a conversation with your team members about how stretched they feel. Ask your direct reports or those you serve if there is any room in their work life. Negotiate respectfully for some space.
  3. Take an inventory of your direct reports who are operating at less than 80% capacity, and have the courage to face this. Be sure you have done everything you can to offer support to those within your stewardship. Have the conversation. Bring clear accountability agreements into your relationships. They must have high standards, clear expectations and ways to measure results, support requirements, and consequences. People need two things from their boss. They need to know you care, and they need performance measures. Be tough on people, be clear with people, but do it with love. No one ever takes pride in doing something easy.

 

Authenticity and Art: Making the Connection

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My father was a “closet artist.” He had a beautiful, artistic side that was repressed because our culture led him to believe that to be successful you had to have an office job, so he was an administrator. Suppressing his artistic, authentic self nearly cost him his life, sending him into an early retirement from the office job and into a decade of depression. It was not until he returned to university at the age of 65 to study art that his spirit awakened.

I am working on a project with the world-renowned artist, Murray Phillips, to teach the leaders in an organization how to use art to be more connected with their authentic selves and those they serve. We had a brilliant conversation this week about the role of art in one’s life, about the value of connecting with our artistic self, about honoring the artist within us, and about how all this makes us better people and better leaders.

“You don’t say that someone is ‘very’ physical,” said Murray. “We simply are physical. It is not a matter of degree. It’s part of the human experience. So why should we say that a person is ‘very’ spiritual, or ‘very’ artistic? These too, are part of the human experience.” Everybody is artistic because everybody has something to express. Try not expressing anything for twenty-four hours and see what happens. You may find yourself losing energy, becoming despondent, or you may even feel like you will burst. You will then need to write a letter, draw a picture, garden, or embark on a project.

“Art,” according to Murray, “is a language, a language that we can learn. It is a mistake to think we can communicate everything verbally. In the language of art, words don’t exist.” This is why art can be used to express a range of emotions – grief, joy, inner peace – that words cannot reach. As we learn this language of art we connect with our authentic self and the world around us in new, expanded ways, thus deepening our capacity to influence others with greater presence, and most importantly, enjoy this experience we call human more fully.

One of the indicators of a hurried, troubled, stressed world is that we disconnect from art and then stop noticing the beauty, wonder, and awe of life. This  then limits our full capacity  as human beings. Being disconnected with our authentic self, with our humanness, separates us from each other and from the environment. What we separate from we neglect or destroy.

What are you doing to learn, deepen, and express the language of art in your life? What are you doing to stop and notice beauty around you? When was the last time you were in awe?

For a taste of Murray Phillips’ beautiful work (along with John Gilliat’s brilliant guitar playing), take five minutes to stop and watch: http://johngilliat.com

Transform Yourself From An “Employee” To A CEO

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When a good friend was offered a position as CEO, he wrote me with this question: “If you were taking over an organization as the new CEO, what would be the first 10 questions you would want answers to?

Here’s the questions that came to my mind. What would your questions be?

  1. What is your mission?
  2. What are your values?
  3. What is your process for getting the value statements off the wall and into people’s hearts?
  4. Who are the real influencers – the “unofficial leaders” in this organization? Why are they the influencers? What do I need to do to build trust with them?
  5. How is the level of trust in this organization? Where are the pockets of high trust? Where are the pockets of low trust? How do you know?
  6. How authentic is this culture? How do you know?
  7. How accountable is this culture? How do you know?
  8. How engaged are the front line employees? How do you know if they are engaged?
  9. What do we need to do to get them engaged?
  10. What are people’s biggest frustrations (that aren’t being talked about openly)? How will we find out and what will we do about them?

To succeed in today’s economy  you have to think of yourself as a freelance contractor – the CEO of your own business within the business you are working in. You have to transform yourself, in the words of Tom Peters, “from an ‘employee’ into a brand that shouts distinction, commitment, and passion.” This means you have to be savvy, informed, continually learning and growing, and take ownership of your career, the organization where you work, and your life. You have to know how to sell yourself, be committed to serve others, and most importantly, do work that matters. Given this assumption, the questions I passed along to my friend might be appropriate for anyone to ask the CEO of their organization.