CEOs Are “Wusses?” I Agree With Pat Lencioni

In Tuesday’s Wall St. Journal Pat Lencioni wrote an article proclaiming that many CEOs are “wusses,” meaning they are weak when it comes to proactively managing performance. I have one thing to say:

ABSOLUTELY!

I couldn’t agree more.

As many of you know my coaching practice began by helping business owners breakthrough the habit of procrastination. I continue to do workshops where I get uncomfortable, squirming in the seats of business owners and CEOs when the subject of procrastination is broached.

Why are CEOs “wusses” and what do they procrastinate on? You’d be surprised to learn a myriad of things, including as Lencioni points out confronting behavior issues that negatively impact individual and organizational performance. Other procrastination items include marketing, sales, accounts receivables, delivering bad news to employees and customers, and the list can go on.

Not to be flip here but one of the big issues CEOs procrastinate on is the procrastination of their employees. Instead of confronting performance issues, they hope they get better, they hope they get better, they hope they get better. Then, they blow wreaking havoc on the individual and ripple affects are felt throughout the organization impacting the culture for months, if not years.

Here are some resources with more specific articles on some of these issues, if you want to learn more and go a little deeper into this issue. Thank you to Mr. Lencioni for bringing the issue to the fore, I’ll do my part to help CEOs build the skills they need to more positively influence individual and organizational performance and improve workplace morale:

Manage Workplace Conflict to Improve Employee Morale

Stop Procrastination Before It Kills Your Business

How a Champion Culture Gives Your Company a Competitive Advantage

Differentiation in the marketplace is key to sustaining long-term business growth and success. How and where to accomplish that market differentiation so that a company gains a competitive advantage is a question I consistently get from my clients.

There are three primary areas through which a company can gain a competitive advantage in a crowded marketplace. It can be done via a company’s products, its service offerings and the relationships it builds with its ideal customers.

To develop and maintain this elusive market differentiation takes a consistent and comprehensive effort throughout a company. It requires a corporate culture in which creativity, innovation and motivation thrive.

There are five areas on which company leaders must focus to create this culture; what I call a Champion Culture:

C = Commitment
Athletic teams become champions because their athletes are committed to the compelling Vision, Strategy and Purpose of getting to the championship game. In business, companies can create a similar commitment by creating and communicating a compelling Vision, Strategy and Purpose to their team members.

Are your employees committed or just complying with their job descriptions to collect a paycheck?

H = Humility
Athletes become champions because they continually improve as they face tougher competition every step of the way. This means they must be open to regular feedback and continually look for ways to get better.

Does your company culture espouse an environment where learning from mistakes is encouraged and asking for help is seen as a strength?

A = Accountability
There are two components to accountability that create champions, setting clear performance expectations and measuring job performance against those expectations. It works in athletics. But most companies fall short in managing specific job performance accountabilities in order to maintain consistent progress toward agreed upon objectives.

What is your company’s process for communicating specific upfront performance expectations and managing accountability to the desired performance?

M = Motivation
Champions are action oriented. When obstacles arise champions find a way through, over, around or under to stay on track. Procrastination (the opposite of motivation) is not in their mindset or habits. I’m amazed at how many business owners, CEOs and other business professionals have significant challenges with the habit of procrastination.

How motivated is your team? How are procrastination and avoidance issues negatively impacting your company’s bottom line?

P = Preparation
Champions show up prepared. They practice almost every day in-season when not playing games. They review films of their opponents to learn the tendencies, strengths and weaknesses they can exploit. Yet in business, you’ve probably experienced far too many team members showing up ill-prepared. Not enough time is invested in preparing for the work week, the workday, key meetings, and sales presentations.

How can your company raise the bar on preparation to begin functioning as a CHAMP?

Focus on raising the bar in these five strategic areas to create a Champion Culture at your company. Doing so will increase the level of creativity, innovation and motivation applied to differentiating your products, your services and your customer relationships in the marketplace. Thus, giving you the competitive advantage you are looking for.

Curiosity May Have Killed the Cat, But Indecision Kills Leaders

One of the first articles I ever wrote for publication was called “The 3 D’s of Leadership - Decisions, Delegating & Diplomacy.” The more coaching and consulting with business leaders I do the more I’m concerned with the ability and willingness to make the tough decisions.

A lack of will in stepping up to address key issues in their division or their own company, if owners or CEOs, and the stories used to justify avoiding the tough decisions is mind boggling.

In January, in the midst of 50 other business leaders at an introductory version of my End Procrastination NOW! workshop, one business leader of a $20 million dollar company, admitted in front of the audience that his habit of procrastination has cost him personally $5 million over the last 10 years. He is now a client.

Last week I met with the managing partner of another $20 million firm who admitted to me that he has been procrastinating on addressing key issues at his firm, including updating their partnership agreement and marketing initiatives in their own backyard where competition has edged in front of them in key networking organizations, business alliances and Chambers because a decision to make it a priority and to hold team members accountable to following through has not made it to the top of the list.

These are avoidance issues all based in fear. As my hero Bruce Springsteen sings in his 2005 song about a soldier in harms way in the Iraq war, “fear is a powerful thing…fear is a dangerous thing, it’ll take your God filled soul…”

This is 100% procrastination. Procrastination is an interesting term that evokes strange reactions in people. Despite working with many intelligent business owners over the last 7 1/2 years of my coaching and consulting practice I continue to be amazed at the lengths many go to engage in this costly habit.

Procrastination, and this flawed decision-making, action-taking strategy is a killer. It is a killer of success, it is a killer of hopes and dreams, it is a killer of self-confidence, self-esteem and self-worth!

Can someone please explain to me how such intelligent, high level, successful business leaders can engage in this behavior that is killing their business and costing them, their partners and employees millions, if not, billions of dollars worldwide?

Are You Familiar With the “Law of Requisite Variety”?

There is a little known law of success that you do probably know but just haven’t consciously focused on applying. Imagine if you did?

I just posted a new article on my website that discusses the success strategy called “The Law of Requisite Variety.” Read about it here

Love to have your comments after you read the article.

Here's One Great 21st Century Idea to Help Create a Champion Culture At Your Company

Here’s a great blog post from an employer law firm that discusses a new way to provide employee feedback. It will totally transform how annual performance reviews and individual performance feedback is provided, using Twitter. It’s Brilliant and could be the wave of the future if forward thinking companies find a way to  make it work, a must read:

Using Twitter to Manage Performance 

What do you think?

Who Cares If Your Company Is a "Champion Organization?"

Eight weeks into working with one of my clients to help lay the foundation of a Champion Organization at his company he asked me a very provocative and interesting question as I was leaving a recent leadership team session.

He said, “Skip, does anyone really care if we have a champion organization here. You know, our employees, our vendors or customers, is this really worth the effort beyond lowering my own stress level?”

There is only one answer to that question.

The question kind of put me on the spot, what am I supposed to say to that, “no, all the time, money and energy you’ve invested doesn’t really matter at the end of the day.” The only ethical answer I could give “yes.”

But, I can see why he asked the question. When you are in the beginning stages of transforming a negative workplace culture to a Champion culture there are growing pains/ At times when some people respond and others don’t. Everyone is different and gaining buy-in has to be done on an individualized basis. It can see like a daunting task as we move through the process. 

I explained that there are a number of stages that will take time to sink in that have to worked through for various constituencies. Each will have to have a reason to get excited about the initiative, we have to continue to reach deep and tap into the WII-FM (What’s In It For Me) for each individual on the team. It will be more important for some than for others. For the ones that don’t jump on board some time in the not too distant future there will be the equivalent of a major league sports’s trading deadline. 

There is a very low threshold for what is expected in the industry in which this company operates. Over the years the entire industry has developed an approach and a culture in which confrontation and conflict is the norm and expectation. It’s going to take time to change the impression that this company is just like the rest but eventually and not too far into the future, the customers and clients will begin to notice.

Here’s what will make it happen quicker:
1) Company leadership team must be the exemplars of the attitudes, behaviors and communication style we’ve decided are consistent with the image the company wants to put forth;

2) The expectation must be set with all employees and team members that moving forward the new Values/Behaviors are the new culture;

3) Any deviation from the expected behavior from among leadership team members or other employees must be addressed and adjusted immediately (all team members will be held accountable to the same expectations and in the same manner);

4) Training and coaching of individuals to bring their interpersonal skills up to the expected standard may have to be provided.

5) Client, customer, sub-contractors and referral sources should be communicated with at the beginning of each project to set the tone and expectations on the new terms with the new approach, so that they know what to expect regarding the interactions with the company moving forward.  Setting the expectation on the front end and then fulfilling them will go a long way towards building the new belief as to what’s possible in this industry.

By following the five steps outlined above, my client will be setting a new tone and become a leader in its industry for changing the entire culture of that industry, one client and one employee at a time.

I’m working on a very exciting project.

NY Times Offers Champion Insights from Two Champion Thought-Leaders

This past weekend the New York Times ran stories on two business leaders others can and do learn from. One is author and business thought leader Jim Collins, the author of “Good to Great.” Collins is presently researching a new book, not due out for a couple of years but the story gives great insights into the authors philosophy, strategy and lifestyle that is an interesting read at this link .

In the same business section there was also a Q&A with Eduardo Castro-Wright, Vice Chairman of Wal-Mart, who spoke about key leadership values and keeping it simple - read more at this link.

How a Champion Organization Addresses Developing Leaders for Successful Succession Planning

One of the three (3) key tenets in creating a Champion Organization is Developing Leadership Throughout. Today an article came across my e-mail from Fortune Magazine on how Proctor & Gamble, a Fortune 500 stalwart, develops its leaders so as to be ready when key positions open.  Just three months ago a void was created at P&G when its global business units president Susan Arnold announced her departure ahead of expectations at the age of 55.

This Fortune article discusses the future of CEO A.G. Lafley, and how P&G develops its future leaders and hires mostly from within.

Small and medium sized business leaders can learn a lot from P&G’s approach and should, if they haven’t already, begun developing their own internal leadership development and career path program. This topic came up two weeks ago in a leadership team session with one of my clients’ and we’ve begun discussing developing just such a program.

The Traits of the Champion CEO

In today’s New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote an excellent column discussing the traits of the best CEOs and how the best are not exactly warm and fuzzy individuals but are results driven.  

To me the research and Brooks’ points come off as being a little too simplistic. I’ve found the best leaders are the ones that can get things done but do so in a way that empowers their people and makes them feel valued. I think you can and should strive to have it both ways.

A recent client, the owner of a $20 million firm, came to me because he was burning himself out by being so focused on execution and bottom-line results that he wanted to be able to more respectfully get things done through others. The feedback from his employees, peers and customers was that he certainly does get things done but leaves a wake of fear and anxiety along the way.

I’d say the best CEOs are the ones who can balance those personality traits but Brooks’ column is worth a read at this link:  Traits of a Champion CEO 

After reading the article come back and post a comment, let me know what you think.

Whose Fault Is Poor Employee Performance, Anyway? It's the Leadership…Always!

I hear on a regular basis how business leaders are frustrated with the level of responsibility and ownership employees take on the job. It’s my belief that this phenomenon is always the fault of the business leaders who are complaining about this to me.

That may sound harsh and it may sound too much of a global generalization but  we have to start somewhere and this is the premise I’ve found that gets the best results for my clients.

Many small businesses, and a lot of large companies, fall short of having the performance management systems that are one-third of the tripod strategies necessary to create champion organizations, the other two being a) a compelling Vision & Strategy, and b) effective leadership throughout the organization.

Whenever I begin working with organizational leaders to begin their transformation to a championship culture, we work on adopting the belief that the employees are not at fault for failing to take responsibility and ownership of their roles. I place the blame firmly on the leadership for not:

a) hiring properly at the outset;

b) setting clear expectations after an individual is hired;

c) creating the environment with the accountability and support/feedback structure that nurtures the type of performance desired which allows the individual to contribute at the highest level they can.

I ask the leaders to take a step back and offer everyone a blank slate from past experience and begin anew with a completely new approach that offers a more effective performance management process, which includes:

1. Setting clear performance standards and expectations at the beginning of the employment relationship;

2. Providing specific, respectful and timely feedback on an employee’s performance;

3. Understanding what motivates the individual and rewarding them accordingly, not expecting everyone to be motivated by the same things.

4. Providing clear insights as to the positive contribution the individual makes to the overall vision and purpose of the organization and letting them know how they make a difference.

This provides joint responsibility for developing the desired performance of the individual team members and the team as whole. It gives both sides specific guidelines for what is expected and how to bring out and nurture the desired performance. This is the beginning of the process and when leaders take this approach, more often than not, team members rise to the occasion. They do so because of three fundamental beliefs that make this work, which I’ll write about next time.

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