Drucker’s Insights On Leadership

The Effective Leader

Bob Stinson RLS Focused Solutions

 In two previous articles, we discussed results-based leadership and some of the possible methods of making that happen. I want to share with you some of the thoughts written by the late Peter F. Drucker in an article entitled What Makes an Effective Executive published in the June 2004 issue of Harvard Business Review. In this article, he provides excellent insights into the development of your leadership style. His analysis is broken down into three major categories with steps within each. They include:

• Get the knowledge you need
  • What needs to be done?
  • What is the right thing to do?
  • Convert the knowledge into action
    • Develop an Action Plan
    • Take Responsibility for Decisions
    • Take Responsibility for Communicating
    • Focus on Opportunities, Not Problems
    • Ensure Company-wide Accountability
      • Run Productive Meetings
      • Think and say “WE” not “I”

What Needs to Be Done?

Yes, what needs to be done, not what you need to do. Often a leader enters into a new position with a preconceived idea of what he wants to get done and, upon arrival, finds that there are issues of greater importance. This is true in business, charitable organizations and government. When George H. Bush ran for President in 1988, his most remembered campaign promise was, “read my lips, no new taxes”. But when he was elected and his understanding of the issues involved, he had to ask for an increase in taxes. The pundits ridiculed him for breaking a campaign promise, but in fact he showed great leadership in addressing the issue.

As a result of this knowledge gathering exercise, not just one but many issues will be identified. Trying to address them all at the same time will lead to a lack of focus and a diluted effort. The question becomes, “What needs to be done right now?” Prioritization of issues to be addressed must occur to effectively make progress.

What is the Right Thing to Do?

What is the right thing to do for the enterprise? Not, what is the right thing to do for me, the owners, the stockholders, the employees, or the executives?  Agonizing over the shareholders should become secondary.

The great majority of businesses in our county are family owned. Often family considerations need to be included in decision making. When it comes to promotions or the filling of a vacant position, a family member should not be considered unless they are the best qualified. Family members should join the firm at an entry level position and rise through the ranks based upon their abilities not their relationships.

Developing an Action Plan

The first stage of converting the acquired knowledge into action is the development of an Action Plan. That plan should include a step-by-step list of actions items to be completed, the reposnsibilty of those who must complete each item and a deadline for the completion of each action. The amount of time required to complete the overall plan may be 6 months, 12 months or longer. It is all dependent on the complexity of the plan.

An action plan is the basis for time management for those involved. Since the organization has focused on a priority issue to be achieved, the manager who is responsible for completing an action item should dedicate the required time to meet the deadline. The basis of any time management exercise is to establish a priority on the use of time during the day.

An action plan is a statement of intention, not commitment. Each plan needs to be reviewed on a regular basis and changes made as appropriate. It is not a strait jacket. Drucker points out, “Napoleon allegedly said that no successful battle ever followed its plan.”

Take Responsibility for Decisions

A leader must hold those who are responsible for completing action steps accountable, while also helping them overcome obstacles. There needs to be the acknowledgment of the completion of a step as a job well done. There also needs to be negative consequences for individuals who are not regularly completing tasks. Progress against the action plan needs to be the subject of regular meetings where everyone reports tasks completed and issues encountered.

Communication to all those directly affected by the plan is a key element. They must understand how it affects them personally and how it effects the things they do. Communication to those who are not directly affected is also needed to apprise them of the changing environment.

Focus on Opportunities, Not Problems.

That is not to say that you sweep problems under the rug. They need to be taken care of, but their solution returns the organization to the status quo. Opportunities produce results which help the firm grow and prosper.

Change needs to be considered an opportunity, not a threat. Look for the gap between what is and what could be. Look for unexpected failures which might be a learning experience, unveiling a new opportunity. Look for innovative processes, products and services both within your industry and in another industry. Look for demographic changes which show the way to the need for specialized services or products. Don’t be threatened by technological change, embrace it.

Think and say “We” not “I”

If you want to take all the credit for success, you may find you are on your own. In 1993, the computer giant was in deep trouble and on the verge of going out of business. Computer technology had changed drastically and IBM needed to go through a revolutionary strategic and cultural change. The Board brought in a new CEO, Louis Gerstner Jr, who had been CEO at RJR Nabisco, and had little knowledge of computer technology. His accounting of the turnaround at IBM is chronicled in his book, Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance. Unlike many industry leaders who tell how they developed their organizations and take the credit, Mr. Gerstner dedicates the book to the team who made it happen and praises them for their efforts. The book is worth reading.

RLS Focused Solutions is a firm dedicated to the development of individual and organizational leaders. Through our many programs we first seek knowledge, then development plans, and finally work with our partners on implementation. Lets start a conversation today. Email bob@plangoals.com or call (910) 55-1286.

Possible Workshops

Pep Up Your Next Meeting with a Workshop

Linda Stinson

What goals do you have for your next conference or business meeting? Why go through the time and expense of bring a group of employees together? Why do association members want to spend their time and money coming to your annual meeting? It just can’t be because we always do it.

Here are some possible goals you should consider:

• I want my employees or association members to develop a network of people who they can later contact to get help working on a difficult problem.
• I would like participants to learn something new that becomes a “take-away” idea from the meeting.
• I want participants to engage with each other in a focused way so they learn from each other.
• We cannot just have a program of scripted speeches.

Let us suggest that whether it is a company retreat, an annual association meeting or even a lunch and learn, a structured workshop can help you satisfy those goals. Experts in education tell us that adults learn best when they are engaged in a focused discussion of a subject as opposed to listing to a lecture. This often provides the “take away” idea from the meeting.  Although there are plenty of social; opportunities for participants to meet others and start building a network, aworkshop provides the opportunity focused discussions of interest to all those attending. Breakout sessions with workshops give participants an opportunity to move away from the larger plenary session and meet people who they would not have met otherwise.

Over our years of working with individuals and organization on development program, we relish the opportunity to share some of that experience with others. We are often called on to do so at a lunch meeting, an organizational retreat or an annual meeting.  Our sessions are very interactive and typically consist of between 5 and 25 people. No one sits in the back waiting for the Power Point to start. Our approach with the meeting host is to select a general subject area and then customize it to the needs of the participants. We do present some basic theory, but our main emphasis is practical application.

Below are listed three workshop ideas and links to 10 to 15 minute YouTube Videos which provide a taste of each. These videos are Power Point presentations which only provide some of the basic content of each workshop. They are not representative of our presentation style or the total content of the workshops.

Hiring the Right People  

This workshop concentrates on finding methods to better improve the practice of hiring a new employee. Chick here to see Power Point Video

Better Use of Your Time

The subject in this session goes beyond the concept of time management into an overall approach of using the time available to be more successful.Click here to see Power Point Video

Developing A Customer Loyalty Plan

 

Consider that a satisfactory grade is a “C” and what is really needed to improve profitability is an “A”, this workshop explores that higher level methodology.Click here to see Power Point Video

These subjects only represent of a few of those possible and available. Call or email us to discuss your specific wishes and needs Bob@plangoals.com  (910) 575-1286

Peculiar Personalities Challenge Meeting Managers

By Barbara Ann Cox, CMP

As a meeting manager, you orchestrate a variety of events — board meetings, educational seminars, regional caucuses, full blown conferences, to name a few. You are organized, efficient, effective and politically correct. You prepare. You plan. You pray.

Whatever the situation, the association meeting manager must depend on others to assist with the many arduous and tedious tasks that are accomplished on site.  As an association meeting manager, you largely depend upon your fellow co-workers as well as volunteer members to provide over-and-above — and deeply appreciated — assistance during the event. Their daily jobs may not be remotely related to event management; nevertheless, they rise to the occasion.

Most likely, this select group of individuals attends the event with a certain degree of commitment to its success and the desire that their association excels. However, some on-site workers have their own attitude and agenda that can be a bit disruptive to the otherwise smooth-sailing event. Here is a whimsical look at the various types of on-site staff that, you as a meeting manager, must manage while managing your meeting.

Wally Whiner

“This box is too heavy.” “When can I take a break?” “Seven AM? Why so early?” Wally Whiner whines about everything, all the time. It is too hot, too cold, too far, too much, too late. He is like nails on a chalkboard. You could just slap him.

Patty Panic

You fantasize about stuffing Patty Panic in the trunk of your car for the duration of the event. She goes ballistic at every turn. She turns ordinarily nice people into frazzled neurotics. Her knee-jerk reaction to every situation creates stressed nerves, needless anxiety and possibly hives. She thrives on the chaos she causes. A smooth-running conference really ticks her off.

Ned Negative

Ned Negative’s knee-jerk reaction to every situation is doom and gloom. He forecasts the future of the event, hour by hour, minute by minute, as one of disaster anticipating the next disaster. His mission in life is to finger the weakness of whatever successes prevail. He would look good with a plastic bag over his head, tied tightly around his neck.

Gloria Goodness

Gloria Goodness nurtures. She mothers. She’s probably a Pisces. Gloria Goodness has a sympathetic ear to even the most egregious story of lost registration, lost nametag, lost checkbook, lost identity. She consoles. She soothes. She disrupts the agenda you have under “Rules & Regulations.” She belongs in the First Aid Room.

Harry Hotshot

Harry Hotshot comes into headquarters with his shirt buttons bursting of bravado and good will. What can he do? How can he help? Where can he serve? One firm request for assistance has Harry Hotshot bolting for the door with a litany of excuses that trail the length of the convention center. You hope he keeps heading for the exits . . . all of them.

Nora Knowitall

Nora Knowitall probably runs the association’s birthday parties.  This gives her the infinite wisdom to be highly knowledgeable about every essential detail of the meeting. She has all the answers; knows all the questions in advance. She can give out the name, address, cell phone numbers and topic title of the last five keynote speakers. No matter that much of her information is incorrect (i.e. fabricated), she stands firm in her misguidance toward attendees. You wish she would get laryngitis or maybe stuck in the elevator.

Claude Competent

Claude Competent read every memo, attended every planning meeting, memorized every session and starched every shirt he wore to the conference. He studied the floor plan, knows all the meeting rooms’ square footage, electrical outlets, public phone numbers, fire exits, etc. He not only knows the names and organizations of the attendees, he also knows their hotel room numbers and eating habits. He never misses a chance to tell you how much he knows, ad nauseam. You know, however, he needs to get a life.

Edna Efficient

Edna Efficient mans headquarters, fills in at registration, helps out in the speaker ready room, assists with lunch seating, passes out handouts and tracks down attendees who have received urgent messages. She is everything to everybody and cannot stop in her quest to personally satisfy attendees, staff and VIPs. However, if she does not get the proper recognition and constant accolades she believes she deserves for her efforts, she pouts and grumbles about how much she sacrificed of herself. You want to suggest she Google “convents.”

I have no doubt that meeting managers could come up with a few choice personalities from their own experiences. I’m sure I could conjure a few more examples as well. However, limited space permits me these few samples of the interpersonal challenges that meeting managers must endure while orchestrating the myriad tasks necessary to produce a success event.

Meeting managers celebrate their professional expertise that makes any event successful . . . despite the peculiarities of the on-site personalities.

Barbara Ann Cox, CMP, has been enduring peculiar personalities for more than 30 years as a conference & meeting management professional. She recently rebranded Meeting Makers Inc., her company of 18 years, to Barbara Ann Solutions, offering multiple services for meeting consulting, site research, speaker resources, public relations, writing, editing, proofreading, event planning and more.  Share your peculiar personalities with Barbara Ann at Barbara@BarbaraAnnSolutions.com or call 850.656.0025.

Creative Leisure

Creative Leisure
by Jeff Davidson

The trend in America in the last decade or two has been toward more frequent but shorter vacations, often boxed around holiday weekends. If you use the contrarian approach and take your time off when the rest of the world isn’t, then holiday weekends are a good time to stay at home and let everybody else compete for highway lanes and parking spaces.

In my book, the Smart Guide to Accomplishing Your Goals, I list a wide variety of possible goals in various categories such as social, leisure, and lifetime goals. Here is a small subset of the lists contained in that book, with some extended explanation.

Do Some Creative Writing
Maybe you couldn’t stand writing in high school or college. Maybe, like me, your teachers and professors marked up your papers so vigorously that you were dissuaded from writing for a couple decades. Nevertheless, you have the opportunity before you, either by turning on your PC or simply taking out a pen and paper, to let your creative juices flow. How about a short story? Some well-crafted short stories are less than 100 words. Could you write one?

How about writing poetry? You might have tried it in high school. Think about how much more wisdom you have acquired, and how that could impact your ability to get poetic. No one is saying that you have to try to get the stuff published, or even show it to anybody else. Perhaps you just keep it in a log or journal for your own edification.

Start a Card Group
Did you use to play cards on a regular basis? I did in college. We played poker on Wednesday and Sunday nights. I played more for the fun and camaraderie rather than for any meager earnings (as it turns out, I lost $85 in the course of one semester). Many people who once played pinochle, bridge, or canasta are surprised and pleased to find that the joys of card games quickly re-emerge. This is especially so when you’re playing against others on your skill level and with people you like.

Researchers tell us that playing cards, filling out crossword puzzles, playing Scrabble or Boggle, and engaging in other such activities helps to keep you mentally alert and mentally sharp, especially as you get older. There’s no need for your cerebral powers to decline.

A card group is easy to arrange. You only need three other people… and if you have a spouse or significant other, perhaps only two other people. Hence, that means just one other couple. How easy can it get?

Spectator Sports: Taming Longer Games
Are you a sports fan? Major league baseball games are running 30 minutes longer today than years ago. The Elias Sports Bureau reports that many sporting contests, even those with a game clock, are taking longer. Owners and managers have a vested interest in dragging out contests to enable media sponsors to air more advertisements and on-site vendors to sell food and souvenirs during the games.

If you’re watching any of the big three, baseball, basketball or football on TV, especially for weekend games, recognize that the inundation of longer and longer commercial breaks all but guarantees that you are looking at three hours from start to finish.  Don’t get caught up in this syndrome. What are your options?
*You can begin watching exactly at the start of games and skip the 30 minutes of commentator and expert analysis.
* If you don’t need to see the game in real time, record, and then fast forward through the commercials when you finally view it.
* Tune in from the start of the third quarter, or in baseball from the fifth inning on.

Join a Choir or Chorus
Maybe there’s an opportunity for you within a local group, or at your place of worship, to open your mouth and make a “joyful noise.” Through the ages, singing has been beneficial to one’s health. After all, you have to breathe more deeply, expand your lungs, and exercise your lower facial muscles.

You probably want to get involved with a group that meets either weekly or every two weeks, versus more often. Otherwise this can end up being a drain on your time or energy. Once you’ve found a group that meets at a comfortable interval, many benefits await. You get to open up that creative space in your brain that you haven’t tapped recently. Most groups choose songs that are among the world’s favorites. You get to participate with others who potentially are at the same place in life as you… or who are at the same place as you at least for those few moments during the week.

Join a Renaissance Festival
If there’s a group in your town that re-enacts periods in history, check it out. Many people say that they have loads of fun at such encounters, whether they be Renaissance festivals, Civil War re-enactments, or Colonial re-enactments.

Collecting Churches and Cathedrals
No, you don’t have to become a multi-millionaire and start buying up buildings. I’m talking about visiting buildings or natural settings that inspire you. My mother, who was not religious, used to “collect” cathedrals. When she was in a town and saw pleasing architecture, she’d stop and focus on it, or sometimes go in and marvel at the statues or stained glass. This was long before digital camera and cell phone cameras.

I do the same when I pass a scenic lake or happen to be atop a hillside. These are tiny moments of leisure that have a cumulative effect if approached as the true gifts that they are.

A Grander Notion
Some people like to combine their leisure time with intellectual improvement. Maybe you’re one of them. Have you ever considered educational travel? This is when people travel to a location with the primary purpose of learning something that’s directly related to the location. So, if you go to Stonehenge, or the pyramids, or the Falkland Islands off the coast of Argentina, you act as both tourist and student.

Educational travel makes perfect sense. You study archeology, the environment, art, architecture, or natural history by actually being onsite and examining subjects in their original location or natural condition. Educational travel allows you to immerse yourself in whatever it is you’re studying and come back a better person.

The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., offers educational travel. Such trips are cited within the first couple pages of each issue of their monthly magazine, Smithsonian. Other institutions offer them as well, primarily universities, conservation societies, and even some professional associations.

Teach a Course That You’ve Mastered
When you teach a course where you’re already a master, there’s no heavy work involved on your part. You don’t need to read up or prepare a lot of notes or outlines. Particularly if you’re teaching in an adult education or university extension, you can walk in and let the sparks fly. The reward comes in your ability to share with people who want to benefit from your wisdom.

It’s been said that you don’t learn while talking to others; you learn only while you listen, but that’s not entirely true. Sometimes you say things in new ways, or you say things that you didn’t know you were going to say, and you actually learn as a result of your own articulation. When you’re teaching a course, you’re really opening yourself up for the chance to learn: As students ask questions, pose their views, and offer insights that represent new ground for you, you are learning as well.

Parting Ideas
Here are some additional ideas on how to make the most of your leisure:
* Start a policy of receiving only magazines that either make your life simpler or that amuse you.
* Only take airplane trips on vacation that are one-flight, non-stop. Anything else taxes you in ways you don’t need to be taxed.
* Take on new friends who engage in leisure activities that you find very alluring and who will teach, guide, train, and include you in their activities.
* Open your home more frequently to others via parties, receptions, meetings, and brief visits.
* Find others in your town who like to play in ways that you like to play.
* Frequently take walks in shopping malls, along city sidewalks, down nature trails, and anyplace else you feel safe.
* Go to the library one evening a week, and read whatever magazines appeal to you. Join a monthly book review discussion group.
* Buy a joke book, learn some card tricks, practice impersonating others, or learn juggling.
* Take an impromptu weekend trip to someplace you haven’t visited.
* Consider taking up a sport you’ve never attempted, such as golf, archery, hiking, or snorkeling. Or take a class on crafts, be it wood, pottery, metals, ceramics, leather, stained glass, jewelry, or woodworking.
* Become an amateur geologist, going on your own “fossil” hunts. This could be as simple as finding rocks and breaking them open, or looking for petrified shark’s teeth, troglodytes, or minerals embedded in stone.
* Buy a telescope and start watching the sky.
* Train a hamster, a gerbil, a cat, or a dog.
* Get on the committee that sponsors a festival, holiday parade, or street fair.
* Take a course in handwriting, calligraphy, or sketching.
* Visit one new restaurant a month or, if the spirit moves you, once a week. With your spouse or significant other, go to a restaurant much earlier than usual some evening, linger over drinks, linger over appetizers, linger over the entree, linger over dessert, and take your sweet time leaving as well. By the time you’re out of there, the world will have changed. So will your attitude.

Jeff Davidson, on the web at http://www.BreathingSpace.com, holds the registered trademark as “The Work-Life Balance Expert®.” Jeff is the leading personal brand in speaking, writing, and reflecting on work-life balance issues, and he has a passion for speaking to organizations who want to help their employees make rapid progress in this arena. He has spoken to Fortune 50 companies such as IBM, Cardinal Health Group, and Lockheed, and to American Express, America Online, Wells Fargo, and Westinghouse.