Tuesday, July 31, 2018
Thursday, June 8, 2017
Establishing who we will be
We have a little mantra here that says 'Do power
differently' and that means eliminate hierarchy, love your customers more,
admit when you're wrong, this idea of eliminating the distance between me and
you, creating a sense of we all rise and fall together, it's more like
eliminating separation because… I don't care [about] the colour of my skin, my
gender, we're all walking the same human path.”
“So, for me, just to embed that language and cooperation
anywhere, especially [at] a utility company, has been my greatest honour.”
“I always say, if you have a lot of power you have to be 10
times more humble because people don't like it already that you have power over
them, so we have to just remind our team that people already feel powerless, so
we have to be a lot more respectful, even when people are aggravated with us.”
Kelly Tomblin
Jamaica Observer
June 8, 2017
Will the New JPS culture survive
“We put together a transformation team from throughout the
organization that went to every location and asked people 'what is your greatest
vision for this company, what do you want with your hearts, what is your heart
telling you?'” “It came from here, it wasn't like I brought it, and I
think what leaders do, if they do it right, they find what already exists in
you that may be covered up, because we got hurt, we've been abandoned, we've
been talked down to, whatever reasons. And so I think a lot of what leadership
is all about is being able to uncover and take away that baggage from you and
say, 'Oh, that's who you really are, let me see that'.
“I think that's what we've been able to do, to say take off
your mask, quit trying to be like that person, be your grandest self of what
your creator made you to be, and I do think that requires a different language
that we've had.”
Kelly Tomblin
Jamaica Observer
June 8, 2017
Jamaica Observer
June 8, 2017
Wednesday, June 7, 2017
Sir Richard Branson’s thoughts on why businesses fail
The reason
businesses fail is “that management pays no attention to little details. A lot of big companies don’t listen to their
staff or customers to get the little details right. To run a hotel or if you have a smaller
company, listen to your people who buy your products. Listen to your staff who
are on the frontline. Write the things down that they tell you and then make
sure you sort those things out. Suddenly you will have a fantastic company that
everybody likes, because there won’t be anything left to write down. You would
have sorted everything out and everybody is loving it, so you can go forward to
the next step.”
Sir Richard Bronson
Jamaica Observer, June 7, 2017
Sir Richard Branson’s explanation for how entrepreneurs build businesses
“An
entrepreneur is like an artist. You have an idea, so you have a blank sheet and
then you start filling in on that sheet of paper as you create a business. To
create a business is like getting the perfect picture on that sheet of paper
and getting every little detail right, and then you launch your business. You have your perfect piece of art created.”
Sir Richard Bronson
Jamaica Observer, June 7, 2017
Thursday, May 11, 2017
How Leaders Save Followers From Being Professional Victims
Many executives are relatively strong at taking responsibility,
especially in areas where others don’t. They stand up to be counted, assuming
risks that others won’t. However, they are often baffled when their
followers show an excessive and inexplicable fear of victimization. What
should leaders do to eradicate this bad habit that makes good people slip
into dependency and turns potential future leaders into weaklings?
Case: A corporate leader who I work with scratches his head in dismay.
His followers, who he hopes to grow into a new cadre of leaders have devolved
into victims-in-waiting. That is, they have learned an infantile,
super-sensitivity to perceived slights and imagined disrespect. He has
discovered that even his best attempts to make a difference are taken as
personal attacks. They have become professional victims.
According to the Urban Dictionary “professional victims” claim
victimization when things don’t go their way. They continually believe
someone is taking advantage of them. In his case, workers have taken to
attend meetings in a silent boycott, refusing to contribute anything more
than a minimum.
Truth be told, there is a certain kind of power to be gained from
convincing your (perceived) oppressors that you are their victim. At best, it
invites them to take responsibility in a new way as a result of seeing the
truth for the first time. When this happens, transformation can result as it
did in countries like the USA, India and South Africa.
However, at worst, being a victim can be just a form of
hostage-taking. Then, it becomes a nasty blame-game where the self-described
weak gain a scrap of leverage, usually by bullying those in power into
feeling guilty.
Unfortunately, in some companies there are a frighteningly large
number of staff members who act as professional victims. In your company, you
may know exactly who I am talking about. If you do, then go a step further
and ask yourself: “Is the diseased thinking spreading or shrinking?”
Use your answer to gauge how effectively your people are being led.
Ineffective leaders merely join the pity party, engaging in their own version
of professional victimhood. They may, for example, compare their current job
against prior roles they held in better companies, with better colleagues who
served better customers. This just makes the situation worse.
Effective leaders respond quite differently by taking the following
three steps.
1. Demonstrate By Example
Real leaders take responsibility at extraordinary levels, far beyond
the boundaries of space and time. For example, they may even take ownership
for what people do to each other. Or, they may assume responsibility for what
has happened in the past, under prior leadership, as if they were in charge
when it happened.
While others may think this is crazy behavior, it is actually
self-empowerment at its finest.
Leaders who are powerfully self-aware are not blind to what they are
doing and they don’t do it in secret. They actively create a context in which
they locate themselves as the cause of important results, positive or
negative. As they do so, one public step at a time, it’s noticeable that
something is different. This magic ingredient may be hard for others to
articulate, but leaders seize vacuums of responsibility to inspire others to
act.
2. Educate Followers
A few top leaders don’t just act differently, they teach this
exceptional behaviour to others at every opportunity. Sometimes, they have
developed their own language for what they do, using homegrown phrases such
as “taking one for the team.” Developing responsibility in others is a
critical part of their job and the key to a cultural transformation.
3. Share the struggle
A tiny handful go even further than teaching others. They take the
risk of sharing their personal struggle with new areas of responsibility. By
doing so, they show that it’s OK to be imperfect, giving staff real-time
insight behind the scenes of a leader’s transformation.
Unfortunately, most top executives are clueless about these three
steps. With low awareness, they are stunned when people avoid interacting
with them for fear of being victimized. They witness employees acting as
responsible adults in other areas of their lives (family, church and
community) and can’t understand why the workplace is so different.
Professional victims are perfectly capable of this dualism.
They can also be quite effective at converting others to their cause:
misery loves company. This means that leaders cannot just sit back and wait
for people’s mindsets to change – they won’t.
The solution is to be aware and active. If you are a leader, work on
the three skills listed above and make them part of your everyday way of
being. Leaders are only called forth when the stakes are high and success
will be impossible if you avoid this particular duty. It is hard, but
necessary.
Published : Jamaican Gleaner 12/2015
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Francis Wade is the author of Perfect Time-Based
Productivity, a keynote speaker and a management consultant. Missed a column?
To receive a free download with articles from 2010-2016, send email to columns@fwconsulting.com
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