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In this edition:
Marshall Goldsmith on "Nice Guys Can Finish First"
Patricia Wheeler on "The Business Case for Optimism"
Nice Guys Can Finish First
by Marshall Goldsmith
Imagine a world where technical skills, educational pedigrees, even professional achievements and track records no longer matter. Everyone is blessed with equal brains and talent. Everyone is highly skilled, well educated at the same school, and locked in a dead heat of accomplishment, posting exactly the same "lifetime batting average."
Now, imagine that you lead an organization in this world. How would you hire people? How would you decide whom to promote and whom to cast aside?
Chances are you would start paying very close attention to how people behave -- how they treat colleagues and clients, how they speak and listen in meetings, how well they extend the minor courtesies that either lubricate daily work life or create friction. Welcome to the real world at the higher levels of organizational life.
We apply these behavioral criteria to almost any successful person, whether it's our CEO or our plumbing contractor. But sometimes we forget to apply them to ourselves. And in turn, we forget that our behavior may be holding us back.
All other things being equal, your people skills (or lack thereof) become more pronounced the higher up you go. In fact, even when all other things are not equal, your people skills often make the difference in how high you go. Who would you rather have as a CFO? A moderately good accountant who is great with people outside the firm and skilled at managing very smart people? Or a brilliant accountant who's inept with outsiders and alienates all the smart people under him?
Not a tough choice, really. The candidate with superb people skills will win out every time, in large part because he will be able to hire people smarter than he is about money and he will be able to lead them. There's no guarantee that the brilliant number cruncher can do that now or any time in the foreseeable future.
We all have certain attributes that helped us land our first job.
These achievements go on our resumes. But as we become more successful, those attributes recede into the background and more subtle traits emerge. It's not enough to be smart. You have to be smart -- and something else. At some point, you get the benefit of the doubt on skill issues. For example, we assume our doctors know medicine, so we judge them on their bedside manner. And not many people remember that Jack Welch has a PhD in chemical engineering. That's because none of the problems he encountered in his last 30 years at GE were in any way related to his skill at chemical titration or formulating plastics. When he was vying for the CEO job, the attributes holding him back were strictly behavioral: his brashness, his blunt language, his unwillingness to suffer fools. The soft behavioral skills came to the fore only after he delivered profits and ascended the GE ladder. That's when the GE board wanted to know if he could behave as a CEO.
What if you had to prepare a resume where you couldn't highlight the elite college you graduated from, or your five years at McKinsey, or even your title at your current job? You can't boast about the profits you posted, the sagging division you turned around, or the product you launched and turned into a stand-alone brand. The only data you can put on your resume are your interpersonal skills (which, for the purposes of this exercise, must be documented and authentic). What would they be?
To be able to listen?
To give proper recognition?
To share -- whether it's information or credit for a success?
To stay calm when others panic?
To make midcourse corrections?
To accept responsibility - and admit mistakes?
To defer to others, even (especially) those of lesser rank?
To let someone else be right some of the time?
To resist playing favorites?
You see where I'm going? This quick list of attributes, while attractive in a junior employee, is not the sort of thing that junior employees get lauded for. But further along in your career curve, when it's time to step up into a leadership position, you're going to need these qualities in spades. Stripped of your technical mastery and your hall-of-fame-quality lifetime batting average, what are the interpersonal skills that will make you rise above the leadership pack? Pick one, any skill that you feel you're lacking. And start developing it . . . now.
Marshall Goldsmith is a world authority in helping successful leaders achieve positive, measurable change in behavior: for themselves, their people and their teams. He has been named one of the top 50 leaders influencing the field of management over the last century (American Management Association), one of the five most respected executive coaches (Forbes) and among the top ten executive educators (Wall Street Journal). He is the founder of the Alliance for Strategic Leadership and Marshall Goldsmith Partners. Marshall invites you to visit his library (MarshallGoldsmithLibrary.com) for articles and resources you can use. This article was originally published in Fast Company Magazine, November 2004.
The Business Case for Optimism
by Patricia Wheeler
"I'm not an optimist or a pessimist.I'm a realist," the leader said. We were discussing his 360 degree leadership feedback. His organization needed him to take a bigger and more visible role, and operate with more strategic focus. His team recently weathered a corporate restructuring, and many were confused and anxious about the changes as well as worried about their individual careers and the company as a whole. He was surprised by his low marks on items measuring "sets a positive and compelling vision for his team" and "leads with optimism and inspiration."
The leader, whom we'll call Pete, pushed back on my suggestion that we address this in his Development Plan. "Why shouldn't I just work on developing my strategic focus?" he asked. "Isn't that what will drive results?" I told him that while this should certainly be on his radar screen, we needed to dive deeper into how the comments on his pessimism factored into the effectiveness and execution of his strategic dialogue with the team.
We all fall somewhere on the optimism/pessimism continuum. Comments by Pete's stakeholders told the story. "Be less critical of us when we're working 14 hour days already," one said. "Tell us what we're doing right," another said.
Dr. Martin Seligman from the University of Pennsylvania has researched optimism for over 25 years. He's the leading expert on how optimism produces clear return on investment..not only in our health and personal life, but in our business results. His book Learned Optimism is a classic resource. He describes pessimists as those who believe bad events are persistent, will undermine one's efforts and tend to be caused by one's shortcomings. Optimists, faced with similar circumstances, believe that defeat is a temporary setback resulting from a difficult situation; under pressure, they tend to try even harder.
In one study, Seligman studied MetLife agents selected for traits of high optimism and lower expertise in their industry; these agents outsold the others by 21% during their first year. In their second year, the optimistic group outsold the regular sales pool by over 50%.
Examples abound in sports performance as well. Seligman studied professional baseball and basketball teams, as well as Olympic swimmers, to track the drivers of success. In situations of high challenge, the results were especially striking. In one study, competitive swimmers were told that their race performance was worse than it actually was. After a brief rest, the swimmers raced again; the pessimists' performance worsened, but the optimists' performance stayed even and at times was even better.
How does optimism drive effective business strategy? Setting a clear, compelling vision is an intrinsically "optimistic" effort. To be maximally effective, leaders must conceptualize and articulate a bright future and believe in their ability to achieve their desired results despite the obstacles in their way.
What situations benefit most from an optimistic approach? Those that require sustained motivation to achieve results, such as selling, where individuals must be confident in the face of frequent rejection. Also, situations requiring motivation during complex change; in short, most activities in today's business climate benefit from teams and individuals employing an optimistic response style.
When is optimism NOT the best strategy to use? As with any good thing, optimism can be overdone. Here's when not to use your optimism muscle to excess: in high-risk situations where the stakes are high, you need to think of what could go wrong, and articulate a "brightness and darkness of the future" dialogue. Being realistic includes a clear assessment of both downside risk and upside opportunity. A good optimist understands the power of vision and can articulate the desired future.
Pete decided to deliberately act more encouraging with his team. He consciously practiced this skill, as optimism did not come naturally to him. As his coach, I asked him to pause a moment before responding to his direct reports when they came to him with problems, so that he could respond with encouragement rather than from his "default style" of frustration. As a memory aid, he kept a glass on his desk with a post-it note on it reading "half full." Sounds simple, but this behavior change was not easy for Pete. After six months, he was pleased to see that his team was back on track and well on its way to implementing the new strategic plan. And Pete commented that his more optimistic behaviors were reaping rewards at home as well.
Coach's tip: Ask yourself: what's your own default position on the Optimism/Pessimism continuum? Which could you use more of, to obtain the balance of a true realist? How would your team respond to more encouragement and faith in their abilities? Optimism, like leadership, is a learnable skill.
Patricia Wheeler is an executive coach and consultant who helps smart people become better leaders. As Senior Partner in the Levin Group LLC, she has spent 15 years specializing in organizational systems dynamics and coaching senior leaders. A distance-learning expert, Patricia uses an action-oriented and results-based approach to coach teams within global organizations, leading to increased synergy and bottom-line results. She is also a member of the Alliance for Strategic Leadership, a global network of senior executive coaches and consultants founded by Marshall Goldsmith.
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