Creative Reaction

Owners and Mangers, if you aspire to motivate your teams; if you need them to commit to a vision or a greater purpose, read this Simon Sinek account of “servant leadership”.

Sinek witnessed first-hand an important, yet from a strictly personnel standpoint, costly Marine Corps policy, which exemplifies their culture. The lesson?

The strength of an organization is easily measured by the steps it takes to look after its own.  To what lengths does a company go to show its people that they matter?  An organization that shows commitment to its people can expect its people to show commitment to them.

If you are having morale, motivation and turnover issues within your organization, Sinek gives us plenty to chew on.

It really bugs me when I see lists of how NOT to do things. Sure it’s an attention-getting device, but it is one with a completely negative undertone, requiring translation of all the negatives into positives. Besides, you can’t tell people to not do something negative. It doesn’t work. You can’t say to someone, “Whatever you do, don’t think about man-eating cows”; he is going to think about man-eating cows! Instruct people to do something positive, so they can do something positive!

So, I’m translating this otherwise excellent blog post into positives.

Ten Steps to Allow Creativity to Flourish:

1. Brainstorm constantly. Focus on one issue at a time for best results.
2. Praise new and unusual ideas. Even if they are incomplete or flawed, give them some breathing room.
3. Stress innovation, even with its inefficiencies. Innovation is supposed to be a little sloppy. (See below.)
4. Manage mistakes. Allow them to happen; in fact, encourage them. They are an inevitable part of pushing boundaries. Learn from them. Do not create rules to prevent them except in mission critical areas (or issues of public safety and medicine). Most importantly, teach mistake recovery.
5. Hold loosely onto plans. Better yet, build a prototype rapidly and cheaply, learn from its shortcomings. Reiterate, rinse & repeat.
6. Look to competitors, other industries, and academia for ideas. The buzzword for this is Open Innovation.
7. Find fresh brains! Recruit outsiders. People in an industry tend to think alike and to be blind in all the same ways.
8. Lead transparently. Share the business’ successes and problems. Work together to find solutions.
9. Stress health. Encourage breaks, adequate rest, exercise and socialization – both inside and outside of the workplace.
10. Train, train, train. Train people about your culture. Train them to lead. Train them to further your vision when you are gone.

Believe, and help others see why they should, too on the Management-Issues blog offers some excellent advice on creating a passionate, self-motivated team.

Quoting the article, “effective managers and leaders know what they believe and why they believe it”, though success lies beyond confidence and a positive attitude. The key is hiring the right people for the job, showing that you have confidence in them, and helping them find their own motivations to follow the leader’s vision. Good stuff.

(Peaceniks, bear with this; there’s some excellent advice!)

I was a bit surprised to see this at Harvard Business Publishing, yet it makes perfect sense.

Why the Military Produces Great Leaders makes a case for “servant leadership“, a concept which I imagine appeals to those of us who cringe every time a CEO  grinds a company into the ground for personal gain, then seemingly gets away with it.

Quoting Colonel Tom Kolditz, author of the post, “military leadership is based on a concept of duty, service, and self-sacrifice”.

“When serving in crisis conditions… transactional sources of motivation (e.g. pay, rewards, or threat of punishment) become insufficient… When followers have trust and confidence in a charismatic leader, they are transformed into willing, rather than merely compliant, agents”.

This is called “transformational leadership” – the kind of leadership that inspires everyone in a company to give his best.

Go read the article. It has additional insights and asks some thought-provoking questions. You’ll be a better leader for it.

It seems management, capitalism, and frugality have received a bit of bad press lately. Here’s an inspirational story posted at Harvard Business Review that shows redeeming aspects of all three.

The Boss Who Laid Himself Off tells of the selfless acts of a manager who no doubt impacted the lives of two talented, younger managers and their families, which of itself offers an important example. What many may not also see in this story is the idea of mentoring, then stepping aside to allow the next generation to energize and continue a company’s mission.

And the frugality angle? Well, do you think “Bob” could have done what he did had he been up to his eyeballs in debt? Living frugally and saving allows us the freedom to do the right thing.

Great post over at Creativity & Innovation, where Keith Sawyer explores the “tension between individual creative vision, and the collective genius of the group.”

In this Web 2.0 age, where collective knowledge is valued, leaders must keep in mind that “collective stupidity” also abounds. Often, leaders need to move ahead, even when support is lagging behind, knowing that eventually the group will catch on. And just as often, they need to listen.

“You need to have muscles. You need to have muscles on your muscles! You need to have muscles on your eyeballs!”
-Reg, Bouncer for the Salty Spitoon

Three Traits of a Tough Leader is a brief post on leadership traits on Harvard Business Publishing’s Blog, and despite the above SpongeBob quote, the traits all have to do with inner strength.

Toughness, defined by the author as inner resilience and character, is often overlooked, and yet is an essential leadership quality.

“Toughness matters because you need a leader who has the wherewithal to stand up for what she believes in, as well as stand up to others to achieve team and organizational goals.”

(I find humor in that the author apparently lacks the toughness to stand up to the politically-correct grammar-rewriting Nazis. Counting skills come into question as well, since there are actully four traits listed, in boldface type, no less. But I digress; I really like the post.)

Anyways, the four traits common to tough leaders are that they:

1. Defuse tension
2. Get up off the floor (when knocked down)
3. Let off some steam (in a good way) and
4. Are humble (which seems to be counter-intuitive)

It take a tough man to make a tender chicken. Likewise, being humble and “owning up to failure, is not a weakness; it’s a measure of strength.”

(I’ve written about the freedom to make mistakes in Making Mistakes Must Be Corporate Policy  and Making Mistakes Must Be Corporate Policy II)

Good reading. Check it out, then see where you might stand some toughening up.

Ed Kless of Verasage Institute has a quick post contrasting empathy and sympathy, the former being a trait that would limit a person’s leadership ability, and the latter being a perfect complement to a person’s leadership ability.

He explains, “Empathy implies that the leader would share in the anxiety of the follower. This would hamper the ability of the leader to lead and therefore not be in alignment with great leadership.” He continues, “Leaders need to be self-differentiated. They need to exhibit a strong sense of self. They need to be autonomous, independent, individualistic, and, yes, sympathetic”.

Managers, take note!