Effective Decision-Making and Follow-Through

April 6 Workshop Topic: Effective Decision-Making and Follow-Through, with Marcia Daszko, Marcia Daszko & Associates

Effective decision making is a challenge that people face everyday. For leaders of organizations, where decisions impact thousands of people, organizations and industries, the process of making effective decisions becomes critical. Some decisions impact life or death situations. Fundamentally, making decisions means making choices based on multiple variables that are both rational and emotional. Choices are made by assessing what is known and certain, what is at risk, and what is unknown with probable outcomes. Once decisions are made, they need to be implemented.

In this session, we explored what it takes to make more effective decisions and execute them as well as the obstacles to great decisions and how to remove them. We will discuss the challenges to executing decisions and how you can make changes tomorrow to achieve better decision making and execution.

To encourage growth based on continual transformative change:

• Have an aim/compelling purpose and communicate what it is, what it means to stakeholders, organization, industry, company, society.
• Ask strategic questions.
• Challenge any assumptions you might have.
• Leaders do not delegate accountability down the chain, but continually look for systemic issues/processes which are barriers to success (rather than blaming and faulting the parts - the people and things that support the system).
• People are responsible for the commitments they make.
• Four questions about the decision you're making: AIM: What are we trying to accomplish together? METHOD: By what method? CUSTOMERS: Who are we serving? MEASURES: How will we measure progress and success? Do not focus your measures on individuals who are only part of the system.
• Five key questions for managing data-driven decisions: What bugs you? What is repetitive about what bugs you? What can you measure about that? How will you know if a change is an improvement? What changes can you make that will result in an improvement?
• Stay away from the culture of accountability which is closely tied to blame and fear
• Adopt the BOHICA principle, which assumes that a minority are early-adopting Explorers (who embrace change readily) and Pioneers (solid adopters, more cautious before adopting change), the majority are Settlers (who take a wait and see stance), and the remaining are Cynics (unlikely to adopt change). The principle focuses on supporting the Explorers and Pioneers.
• The key to managing an organization/system is to look at data over time in context.

Marcia conducted a kaleidoscope exercise and asked the participants to brainstorm the answers on several questions (see below). From there we began to explore some fundamental theories about making more effective decisions and leading an organization's transformation.

What are the most important elements of making a good decision:

• Define the goal
• Get consensus on the goal/acceptance by stakeholders
• Having the right information to make educated decisions - Seeing consequences and impacts
• Get a second opinion from others before deciding
• Balance research and intuition/Reasonable risktaking
• Tools and resources
• Research and Timelines and Measurable results
• Timing of the decision

What are barriers to making good decisions:

• Resistance to change /not open to alternatives/Lack of agreement
• Politics/Power
• Fear/Lack of Trust/Procrastination
• Assumptions held
• Lack of follow-through/reward structure/not considering impact
• Lack of data/information/time/too many uncertainties/unknowability
• Lack of resources/ support
• Too much thinking
• What are some ideas for addressing different decision-making styles:
• Understand the perspectives of the stakeholders/Get buy-in
• Allowing innovation and creativity/Listening to different opinions
• Differentiating between what's essential and what's secondary
• Understanding big picture
• Having achievable goals/Considering future impact
• Using intuition
• Having good data
• What are the elements of Effective Follow-Through:
• Leadership/vision/mission
• Ownership and accountability
• Buy-In
• Milestones, Timeframes and other Measurable results
• Desire for success
• Remove obstacles of implementation
• Delegation

What are some barriers to Effective Follow-Through:

• Lack of Leadership/Unclear Communications/Conflicting priorities/Not setting expectations
• Lack of/incomplete buy-in
• No Accountability/Unclear milestones, goals/No Measurements/Unclear plan commitment vs. interest
• Time constraints/Poor Process/Lack of resources/Taking on too much/Placation disorder
• Fear: of uncertainty, failure, success
• Perfectionism and procrastination
• Sudden and unforeseen change
• Role Confusion/Bystander Syndrome
  

For more information:

• The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education by W.E. Deming
• The Goal, A Process of Ongoing Improvement by E. Goldratt
• The Improvement Guide: A Practical Approach to Improving Organizational Performance by G. Langley
• Understanding Variation: The Key to Managing Chaos by D. Wheeler
• Understanding Statistical Process Control by D. Wheeler
• Leadership On the Line: Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Leading by Ron Heifitz
• The Empowered Manager: Positive Political Skills at Work by Peter Block

Using Age to Your Advantage.

FountainBlue's March 22 Transitions event was on the topic of Using Age to Your Advantage.

Your age is one of your most powerful advantages in your job search ... if you have the right attitude and strategy to overcome the subtle and not so subtle age bias that exists in every interview.

For this FountainBlue Connections event, America's leading professional career coaches, Jean Erickson Walker, shares her very practical and expert advice on landing that great job you really want ... at any age. Jean Erickson provided us with a step-by-step guide on how to turn your age and experience into must-haves for any potential employer. We shared our stories and challenges around 'the age question' and participated in an engaging discussion. Below is advice for using age to your advantage:

• Have a positive attitude about your age, no more derogatory remarks
• Position yourself as a trustworthy, experienced, competent executive with integrity, values, and competence who will make life better for the senior executives at an organization
• Talk about the big picture, don't talk about the smaller details you did in executing a project
• Sell your relationship skills, not necessarily your tactical and technical knowledge
• Find a job which sounds like it would be fun, exciting, rich and engaging learning and growing experience where you can make a real contribution

Jean's Top Ten things to consider in using age to your advantage:

• Understand the new world of work
• Become CEO of You, Inc.
• Remember your age IS an issue
• Stop looking for jobs and start looking for work that needs doing
• Do a thorough self assessment
• Take a strategic view of job listings
• Learn the career search process
• Focus on outcomes, create a defining statement
• Pick your battles, sell your greatest asset, wisdom
• Bring your friends to the party

For more information:
Contact Jean and inquire about her coaching services
Order her book
Read her articles

The Nearshoring Option

FountainBlue's March 16 Connections event was on the topic of The Nearshoring Options.

In this month's Connections event, we described Nearshoring options, in comparison to off-shoring options, share some Nearshoring success stories from large high-tech, life science companies as well as a smaller start-up's successes. Our experienced panel of experts shared criteria they used to determine outsourcing solutions. Our attendees shared their challenges and successes with our panel:

• Facilitator Matt Perez EVP of Engineering and founder of NearSoft
• Panelist Brian Higgins, Manager at KLA Tencor
• Panelist Dr John Linehan, Stanford Professor
• Panelist Steve Mezak, author of Software without Boundaries
• Panelist Ray Scott, CEO, Axolotl

We discussed how offshoring and Nearshoring options impact the company's business model in the long-term and in the short term. Below are notes from our discussion.

Nearshoring is an attractive option for companies that need to partner with providers outside their organizations to meet their development needs and timelines.

• Educated, intelligent developers are becoming more and more available
• More experienced technicians are being trained even in the United States
• US citizens well acculturated into the American society are leading development firms from their native countries and can serve as interpreter/facilitator between development teams
• Nearshoring addresses the time zone challenges presented by working with countries on the 'other side of the world' (of course that's all relative)
• When issues arise, they may be solved more quickly when time zone factors aren't as heavily involved

Before you consider a Nearshoring partner, consider the following factors:

• The education level of the country/organization/people that you're working with
• The infrastructure support for the country you're considering
• Your personal software development needs
• The culture of your organization, and that of the country you're outsourcing to
• The relationship you have with the organization
• How close the Nearshoring team is to the rest of your teams
• The political and economic stability of the country you're working with
• The time zone question - how many time zones away are they and how would that impact yourself and others on your team? would you need to adjust to early morning or late evening hours, and which are you more comfortable with?
• In general, minimize the education, communication, distance, etc., separation between yourself and your development partners in order to maximize your degree of control

To make the best use of Nearshoring relationships:

• Make priorities and statements of work clear, while also communicating and adjusting as needed
• Consider whether you're using Agile method (like UML, SCRUM) which is more collaborative and iterative or Waterfall with complete specs
• Use communication tools to facilitate and coordinate development efforts; these might include IRise, RavenFlow, BuyProcess (Unified Modeling Language), MS Project, Online software as a service tools such as Artifact Software, Clarison, etc.,
• Build the largest pipeline for information flow between the various development players so that you can better stream video, audio and other data; real-time video tools might include Microsoft or IBM Lotus
• Understand specialties for each region
• Understand travel and infrastructure development limitations/constraints (there are tier 1 areas in India like Bangalore and tier 2 ones like New Delhi)
• Consider copyright requirements not just for your direct providers, but also for their providers

For more information:

• See Nearsoft's Outsourcing Risks page

http://www.nearsoft.com/outsourcingrisks.php

Take Accelerance's software IT readiness test http://www.accelerance.com/readinessTest.php3

Take Accelerance's Vision Resourcessm - Outsourced Team Selection Service from Accelerance http://www.accelerance.com/visionResources.htm

Subscribe to the Accelerance RunTime eZine http://www.accelerance.com/runtimeSignup.htm

Women in Policy

Our March 9 event was on the topic of Women in Policy

With the latest election results, Silicon Valley, California has the distinction of having two women representatives in the Senate as well as the speaker of the house. This month's conversation will focus on having women in policy at the local, state, regional and national levels and their impact on our business and personal lives. We will feature the personal and professional stories of the women policy-makers on our panel and share advice on how best to navigate the political landscapes to make the kind of sustainable impact that benefit men and women, in business and in life.

We wish to thank and acknowledge our speakers for their candid and inspiring practical advice on how to support women in forging change at home, in our communities, and at work.

Facilitator Leslee Guardino founder of the Women's High Tech Coalition and Partner at Canyon Snow
Panelist Cindy Chavez, former Vice-Mayor, City of San Jose
Panelist Kathleen King, City of Saratoga City Council
Panelist Liz Kniss, Supervisor, County of Santa Clara
Panelist Bev Strand, Manager, Strategic Partnerships, Worldwide Diversity & Inclusion, Cisco, Member, California Commission on the Status of Women.
Panelist Michelle Wright-Conn, Cisco Global Policy and Government Affairs

Below is additional information and advice on how to support women forging change at the policy and business level:

There has been little change in the last 40 years:

• Women are still not earning at the same levels as men.
• Women are still balancing home and work challenges, being required to do more, multi-task better, work longer hours.
• Women bring a different perspective to policy: It's not just a gender difference, a woman's overall experiences, views and approach are different.

Advice on how to support women forging change:

• Consider the globalization of talent and how it impacts our policy, personal and business perspectives.
• Be exposed to diverse perspectives.
• Take on a challenge, and help others also be one inch taller as they do the same.
• A woman's more collaborative approach might better address the war, healthcare and image issues currently posed at the national level.
• Perhaps adopting a mandate on the percentage of women in office would have a positive impact on policy, much like it had for Rwanda.
• Take the initiative to find out who is running for which office, whether they're men or women and make a point of supporting women and men forging positive change. Your voice matters!
• Be more confident in the abilities of other women.

Advice for yourself, as you lead at work and in community:

• Leverage the more intuitive, more self-aware nature women might have.
• Support technology, and women in support innovation and technology at the policy level.
• Think outside the box; view things with a different lens.
• Expect to be treated with dignity and respect, and make a stand when this is not the case, for yourself, for your colleagues, for those who will come after you.
• Doing the right thing for people generally is also doing the right thing for the economy.

Leading with Power, Influence and Integrity

FountainBlue's March Workshop Topic was Leading with Power, Influence and Integrity, with Camille Smith, Work In Progress Coaching http://www.wipcoaching.com.

In our branding workshop, we talked about how to create your own personal brand of leadership. In our communications workshop, we talked more expanding your communication style so that you can better communicate your desires to a wider range of personality styles. In this workshop, we brought the two concepts together.

• We examined our personal commitments and motivations and their impact on ourselves and the people around us.
• We worked through exercises that challenge us to think through what we really want and how we can engage others to share our goals.
• We explored the differences between unexamined wants and consciously created commitments and their impact on our actions and communications.
• We investigated several types of power and how to choose the one that is most likely to produce the outcomes we intend.
• With this knowledge, we were challenged to generate the "missing ingredient" that would allow us to lead ourselves and others with power, influence and integrity and produce results that create successful businesses and fulfilling lives.
• We left intrigued and inspired by the conversation and empowered into action. We look forward to continuing our discussion on how to elicit effective leadership skills in ourselves, and in those we work and play with. Below are notes from our discussion.

Thoughts on leading with power:

• You are completely responsible on how to use your power, grow your power, balance it with influence and integrity.
• Be willing to stretch your comfort zone.
• Understand your passions, and your commitments. Take action on your commitments.
• Know your skills. Build on your skills and strengths.
• Build relationships bigger than goals. Relationships are the foundation of power and influence.
• Listening leads to relationships, not listening leads to fragmentation and suffering. Build power through listening and engaging others.
• Learn as you lead.
• Power: The ability to do or act.

Thoughts on leading with influence:

• Surround yourself with empowering, like-minded people.
• Understand your skills and build relationships and communities which would respect your skills, complement your skills.
• Build relationships bigger than goals. Relationships are the foundation of power and influence.
• Listening leads to relationships, not listening leads to fragmentation and suffering. Build influence by listening.
• Be the kind of leader who cares, shows character, is competent and consistent and shows commitment.
• Influence: the capacity or power of persons or things to be a compelling force on or produce effects on actions, behavior, opinions, etc., of others.

Thoughts on leading with integrity:

• Understand how you can be healthy and whole.
• Understand the internal conversations you're listening to now, and be prepared to think deeply about why you are having these conversations and how you can shift them so that you're actions, commitments, communications are in alignment with who you are.
• Know where you are headed, why you are headed there. Ensure that your power, your influence is in alignment with your direction.
• Start first with where you are headed - your passions and values. Then build relationshipos and communicate and engage to build power and influence toward a common vision.
• Be flexible enough to allow your passions, values, desires to evolve.
• Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody's going to know whether you did it or not. Oprah Winfrey
• Integrity: wholeness, perfect condition

Below are recommended Articles from Harvard Business Review as well as books:

• In Praise of the Incomplete Leader, Deborah Anacona (2/2007) http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/b02/en/common/item_detail.jhtml?id=R0702E
• What Leaders Really, Do John P. Kotter (12/2001 excerpt) http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/b01/en/common/item_detail.jhtml?id=R0111F&referral=1043
  “Leadership is different from management, but not for the reasons most people think. Leadership isn’t mystical and mysterious. It has nothing to do with having “charisma” or other exotic personality traits. It is not the province of a chosen few. Nor is leadership necessarily better than management or a replacement for it.
  
  “Rather, leadership and management are two distinctive and complementary systems of action. Each has its own function and characteristic activities. Both are necessary for success in an increasingly complex and volatile business environment.”
  
• Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office 101: Unconscious Mistakes Women Make that Sabotage Their Careers by Lois P. Frankel, Ph.D. http://www.amazon.com/Nice-Girls-Dont-Corner-Office/dp/0446531324
• The Naked Truth A Working Woman's Manifesto on Business and What Really Matters by Margaret Heffernan http://www.mheffernan.com/

Learning from Bad Management Practices

Our February 22 Transitions event was on the topic of Learning from Bad Management PracticesThe media is filled with books and articles about management and leadership, and a sizable cottage industry exists of advisers and consultants to teach us the best techniques. But what about *bad* management? You probably haven’t seen many books about that, though you may have seen plenty of real life examples. It’s certainly a commonplace reality. It keeps Scott Adams in business drawing Dilbert, and as Mr. Adams clearly demonstrates, it’s more *fun* than good management – as long as you’re not its victim.

In this talk, we discussed bad management. We covered real cases and real consequences, including failed companies and billions of dollars in losses. The intent is not to derive good management advice, but rather to observe bad management in all its glory. We may also illuminate some tactics for surviving, and perhaps even succeeding, when confronted with bad management.

Our facilitator, Jay Michlin, has served as a senior engineering and management executive within the Silicon Valley and beyond. Currently the VP of Engineering at OnStor, Jay takes pride in learning from Bad Management practices, mentoring and growing high-potential leaders, while delivering bottom-line business results. Bring your favorite bad management stories and the lessons gained from them, and prepare for an interactive and educational discussion!Below are comments and advice from our discussion.

Some characteristics of bad managers:

• They look at business from the '50,000 feet' level, not the on-the-ground level which is much more effective.
• They impose their business standards and experience on their current business situation rather than adapting to the business challenges in front of them.
• They focus on measurements rather than results.
• They put the wrong people in the wrong job.
• Sometimes they add unnecessary layers of management, which takes everyone away from the thoughts of the staff and the customers.
• They lack the courage and integrity to lead and deliver results.

Some characteristics of good managers:

• They have the courage to invite others (like customers and staff) to share the truth/provide honest feedback and to follow through on that communication.
• They have the integrity to do the right thing for the company and its people.
• They utilize the talent from their staff and network.
• They emulate behaviors of other leaders they admire.
• They focus on company results and the bottom line while also addressing strategic business and people issues.

Fostering Innovation and Leadership for Your Organization

Our February 16, 2007 FountainBlue's Connections panel was on the topic of Leadership Matters - Fostering Leadership and Innovation for Your Organization.

An organization's success ultimately rides on the leadership abilities of its key decision-makers, particularly in Silicon Valley with its heavy profile of fast-moving technology companies. These organizations must innovate both their technology and business model continually in order to prosper.

The fact that few organizations rise to be clear stars and long term winners is testimony to how difficult it is to create and sustain a climate of leadership and innovation. For those who have, what are they doing right and how are they doing it? What do you need to do to do to create your own culture of leadership and innovation?

Our panel represented the HR, Strategy and Executive Management perspective on what it takes to foster that dynamic, engaging and exciting culture which attracts and retains the best and the brightest.

• Facilitator Linda Prowse Fosler, Linda Prowse-Fosler and Associates
• Panelist Barrie Novak, Director of Organization Design & Development, Global Technical Services at Cisco Systems
• Panelist Donna Novitsky, partner from MDV
• Panelist Ramon Nunez, CEO of MetaLINCS

Each panelist spoke on:

• The cardinal rules of leadership and why leadership is more important now than before
  What your organization is doing to maintain its competitive talent and maintain their edge in innovation
• Advice and suggestions on how to foster leadership and innovation

In the meeting, we thought deeply about their recruitment, retention and development strategies and also the overall about developing a corporate culture centered around innovation and leadership. Below are notes from our session:

Thoughts on Leadership

• Have a vision you are passionate about
• Focus on the needs of the customers - ask them what they want and adapt your business strategy based on customer needs
• Communicate it clearly, passionately and often. Seek buy-in.
• See clearly who can contribute to the vision in what specific ways - even if they don't see it themselves
• Empower others: Give people the room, space and time to innovate in their own way
• Affirm your people; be proud of who they are and what they do, and communicate that to them regularly
• Adopt a common mindset of empowerment rather than 'victim' or 'blame' as empowerment helps people focus on how they are involved with the situation, what can be changed and how their perceptions might be skewed.
• Distinguish between when alignment is important and when agreement is important. Alignment means everyone buys in even if it isn't their first option and agreement means that the choice is everyone's first option.
• Assess three areas of trust within a relationship: competence, reliability and motive. Consider what makes your assessment of the relationship as high/low as it is and what needs to be done to change that assessment from both sides.

Thoughts on Innovation

• Develop a process for taking ideas and transferring them into commercial value
• Communicate the process and be transparent about the process
• Ensure that the process is within the parameters of the law (employment laws and IP laws, for example), but don't let legal compliance issues be an obstacle to innovation
• Leverage hiring and layoff discussions as opportunities to manage your IP. This sets the expectation up front and also at the end of an employment agreement without infringing too much on day-to-day innovative activities of the typical employee.
• Make it part of the organization's culture to innovate - communicate innovation at all levels of the organization
• Treat everyone as an innovator
• Believe that everyone has the best interest of the company in mind
• Have an 'open kimono' perspective on communications: Communicate the successes and
• challenges for the organization and engage others in addressing challenges and leveraging successes
• Find ways to say 'yes' to someone's ideas
• Welcome creativity and innovation in start-ups; don't squelch that natural tendency in start-up employees by enforcing too much process, discouraging out-of-the-box thinking, etc.,
• Spend more time with the early adopters of change, and less time with the resistors. The early adopters will help turn around the mind-sets of those who are in the middle of the bell curve.
• Separate innovation from implementation
• Allocate the funds and resources for innovation
• Ensure that innovation is in alignment with business goals
• Innovate in all areas, from technology to business models to HR, etc.,
• Balance resource management/bottom line with need for continual innovation.

See also an article about Barrie Novak's leadership alignment project at Cisco by visiting an HR Forum article available at

http://www.hrforum.com/pdf/hru/advisory-board-profile-barrie-novak.pdf.