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.

Healthy Lifestyle Choices

FountainBlue's February 9, 2007 When She Speaks Women in Leadership Series event was on the topic of Healthy Lifestyle Choices.

Our panelists included Geetha Rao; Lisa Jing, HR Manager, Integrated Healthcare Initiative at Cisco; Julie Johnston, HR Benefits Manager at El Camino Hospital; Linda Williams, CEO of Planned Parenthood Mar Monte. And thank you to each of you, for your active participation in this event, which helped make it a success for everyone.

Below are comments and advice on making healthy lifestyle choices from our panel, and the collective wisdom of the audience.

Take responsibility for your physical and mental health

• Frame your thoughts without the 'shoulds' and 'supposed to's' imposed on us by others in our lives
• Proactively manage the stress in your life
• Anticipate the many small decisions we make day-to-day (like take the stairs or elevator; chips or salad; soda or water; portion size, etc.,) and consistently make the healthier choice.
• Arm yourself with facts so that you can make those right small decisions which can make such a big difference
• Be centered in yourself and your interests, values and needs and act based on your identified priorities. Recognize and accept that there may be trade-offs to making those prioritized choices.
• Choose regular exercise and make it a priority
• Make the time for yourself
• Meditate
• As women, our own personal needs come behind those of our children, our spouses, our parents, etc., Make taking care of ourselves as important as taking care of our careers. Be relentlessly assertive about your health and well-being.
• Practice safer sex and protect themselves against STDs because the consequences are often more severe for women
• Serve the community, give back. It provides fulfillment and helps provide balance in your life.

Support yourself and your family in making healthy lifestyle choices

• Encourage others in your life to take responsibility as well
• Encourage frequent 15-second hand-washing
• As a parent, become confident sex educators, as they are the preferred sex educators for our youth (first is parents, second schools, third is peers, fourth the media, but in actuality, the reverse is true). Help other parents do the same.
• Planned Parenthood's book, Let's Talk About S-E-X/ A guide for kids 9 to 12 and their parents might help us become more comfortable sex educators for our children. Order this book through Amazon.
• Be an advocate for HPV immunization for 9-12 year old children, which guards against 4 HPV viruses, which could lead to cervical cancer.

Corporations like Cisco take an active interest in the health and well-being of its employees and their families

• It supports the bottom line for corporations to proactively support its employees and families - 18% of the employee population spends 81% of the cost of healthcare for an organization, so proactively working with employees to head-off long-term health conditions and challenges is in the best interest of both the employer and the employee
• When employees have a better quality of life, they are happier, feel better, easier to work with, and more productive
• Visit http://www.cisco.com/web/strategy/healthcare/index.html for more information.

Expanding Your Communication Style

FountainBlue's February 2 Leadership Workshop was on Expanding Your Communication Style, featuring Kimberly Wiefling, from Wiefling Consulting.

Although one doesn't have to lead in order to communicate one does need to communicate well in order to lead effectively. Understanding and then expanding your communication style will positively impact how you are received and enlarge the range of people to whom you can meaningfully connect to in your network.

Communication skills are among the most powerful tools available to leaders today. Great communicators listen more than they talk, and ask more questions rather than advocating for their particular point of view, and have clear goals for their communication. They are aware of their own communication challenges and strengths, alert to different communication styles, know how to communicate effectively with these various styles, and can continue to communicate effectively even in stressful or challenging situations.

In this action-packed and fun-filled workshop, Kimberly Wiefling enabled us to understand and be effective with different communication styles, raise our awareness of how our communications are being received by others, and inspire us to take action to more effectively communicate with a broader range of audiences. We'll not only learn, but practice, listen generously, be a "thinking partner", and creating a "thinking environment" to rapidly create a meaningful connection and positive rapport with people from widely varying backgrounds. You will leave this workshop with a fresh perspective on the power of your communication and a commitment to implement some of the practical ideas immediately in order to achieve your goals with others.Below are also notes and comments from all of you, our active participants.

Communication Strengths:

• Identify and empathize with others
• genuine and authentic
• focused on interests of others
• Open-minded
• Generous Listening
  

Communication Challenges:

• Infer, make assumptions
• Interrupt
• too shy or self-conscious to network
• too pressured to 'fill the silence' when networking
• highjack conversations - turn them to talk about yourself rather than listening to what someone else is communicating

Communication Insights:

• It's easier to speak if you've listened first
• It's hard to do generous listening, it takes practice
• It's hard to break the habit of interrupting
• It's hard to avoid "helping" speaking with your ideas
• We need to find ways to push conversation forward as a listener
• It's hard not to use 'why' questions, rather than 'help me to understand' phrasing
• It's hard not to use 'how' and jump to action too quickly. Ask 'what would make that possible' instead
• It's hard to communicate when others don't share your perspective - speak about touchy-feely things to engineers for example