Tag: leadership

Q: Recently, you answered a question about how to spur innovation as a manager. I have the same question, but I am just a secretary. I have used available forums to try and introduce basic best practices but have not had success. I would like to increase efficiency and improve the culture here at work. Any suggestions or encouragement would be appreciated.

—Anonymous

Thank you so much for your email. I am appreciative of readers who are courageous enough to email me in response to a column!

Let me begin by saying that there is no such thing as “just” a secretary. All too often that job title—as well as some others—gets a bad rap. Such a position, if done well, can be a pivotal enabler for not just the employee’s supervisor but also the entire organization.

All public servants, no matter their rank and position, have the potential to create value for America. In the language of business, everyone has a role to play. Some roles may have greater impact and some lesser. Nevertheless, all are important. If creating value is not possible in a certain position, then it should be eliminated.

I love the fact that you want to help advance the culture of your organization. Leading need not come only from the top, with directions and instructions handed down the chain of command. Even those with military experience know leadership needs to come from every level of the organization to achieve effectiveness, efficiency and excellence.

The challenge is when people in formal leadership positions stymie subordinates who try to lead. Instead of empowering staff members, they stifle them. Instead of moving barriers out of the way, those leaders fabricate them. Such behaviors are indicators are of a leader seeking control and compliance instead of commitment and caring. What can you do to innovate and advance your organization’s culture if you are under such a yoke?

Since you are willing to be an informal leader, my advice is similar to what I offered before, but with a few twists. Here are three things to consider:

First, start with you. Shape your own mind-set. How can you ask yourself questions that will change your mind-set? What can you do differently to increase the value you provide to others? Can you ask others to help you discover new opportunities? Focus initially on defining the challenge, opportunity or problem before jumping to a solution. Once you confirm that resolving the challenge will create value, then and only then, start thinking about approaches.

If you come up with a valuable idea, especially if it involves you rewiring only your tasks and activities, then find a way to do it. After a few successes that others can see, experience and acknowledge, start asking incrementally bigger questions. Formulate challenges that may need to involve a few more people, but not too many more—you want to achieve success without the need for too much time and too many resources.

Start small and local to your position. As you succeed, slowly grow in magnitude the challenges that you choose to tackle. With positive attitude and positive outcomes you likely will stimulate others to follow.

Second, an important technique for leading a cultural shift from the lower levels of an organization instead of from the top is something called “appreciated inquiry.” Ask your colleagues about their stories of success. Ask them to tell you about when and how they innovated. Discover the challenges they faced and how they overcame those challenges. Then show your appreciation for what they have done.

Find opportunities to share these narratives with others. Doing so will not only create mutual appreciation and build trust, but it also will have a profound impact on your colleagues. By telling these stories and appreciating others you will capture their attention and focus their mind-set on creating their own stories of innovation. A successful spiral of appreciation about even small innovations will naturally lead to people wanting to do more so they will have new stories to tell and new sources of appreciation.

Third, in some instances my advice will not work and could work against you. If your superordinates and colleagues feel threatened by such actions, then your environment may be toxic beyond your control. While I like to think toxic leaders are relatively small in number, they do exist. If your colleagues put you down and your superordinate does not support you in your efforts, then you might not be in the right organization. Even in a time of austerity, opportunities to transfer or find new positions in the federal government exist. Seek out appreciative and innovative leaders and groups that will bring out the best in you. Otherwise, if you stay in a toxic organization it is only a matter time before, as the saying goes, the frog boils.

My advice is to stay positive. Continually seek out new ways to create value. Uncover stories of innovation. Be appreciative. Become a local source of positivism, not just for yourself but also for your organization. If that doesn’t work, find another organization.

Duce a mente

(May you lead by thinking)

Q: How can I lead change across my government agency or across agencies when I don’t have the authority to do so? –Anonymous

Whether it is developing new information technology systems, designing new risk-based systems of regulation, or building new electronic Freedom of Information Act systems, leading change to build new organizational capabilities is a constant if not increasing demand in the federal government.  The task of building these capabilities falls to those in the middle of the government, mid-level and senior executive leaders, who typically do not possess the full set of authorities needed to command construction and adoption of new capabilities.  How can you lead change within your agency or across agencies and other organizations when you lack authority?

My new book, Leading Change from the Middle: A Practical Guide for Building Extraordinary Capabilities, (available at Brookings Institution Press, April 2014, and at Amazon.com) offers one approach for leading change without authority. The approach is based on three central ideas and is illustrated by two government case studies. Here are the three ideas to consider:

Who are my stakeholders? Identify and classify all relevant stakeholders into four categories: superordinates, subordinates, customers and complementors/blockers. As the names suggest:

·      Superordinates represent all those in the direct line of authority above you in the organization—your boss, your boss’ boss, etc.—who will have an interest in the capability.

·      Subordinates are those who work directly for you or who will be contracted to support you.

·      Customers can be inside or outside of your organization and are those individuals who will benefit from the new capability.

·      Complementors/blockers are individuals outside of your immediate chain of command from whom you will need support, but who also can stop your project in its tracks.

Tailor your approach. Stakeholders all require different approaches to communications, strategies, tactics and sequencing (referred to as CoSTS). Here are the CoSTS needed to engage each stakeholder group:

·         Superordinates can be engaged by the set of CoSTS called “agree-in.” For you to succeed, you will need to converse with your superordinates to seek agreement in five key areas. Have an initial as well as ongoing conversations with your superordinates to explore the sources and nuances of the project’s timing and objectives, verify the stakeholder landscape to ensure you have not missed anyone, investigate superordinates’ role and support so that you know how far you can push without losing support, figure out the best way to secure resources and develop an approach for ongoing communications.

·         Subordinates require a different set of CoSTS.  “Bee-in” asserts that you should never ask for “buy-in” from your subordinates.  Asking for buy-in implicitly means that the person wasn’t important enough to be involved in decision making, yet you need them to grant you authority. Bee-in is different.  It works by creating commitment within your team that leads to empowerment. To do so, you ask your subordinates to first formulate the challenge, verifying their formulation of the challenge with stakeholders.  Then, the team develops an approach to tackle and resolve the challenge.  The team again consults stakeholders to verify that they too believe the solution works.  If the team formulates the challenge and develops the solution, not only will they own both the challenge and solution, they also will own the implementation.  Bee-in provides detailed guidance to achieve this outcome.

·         While not appropriate for subordinates, the label “buy-in” does offer four useful CoSTS for engaging customers.  Ultimately, customers pay for the use or output of capabilities with their time and treasure. Even internal customers may have high payments of time in learning and using a new IT system.  Buy-in’s first strategy is to invite customers into the bee-in process—engage customers with the team so that they co-create the capability.  If doing so is not feasible, then either engage lead users and opinion leaders in the bee-in process or research what the customers value.  No matter how you discover the customers’ value function, it is important to market and advertise to help shape perceptions of the capabilities’ value to customers.

·         “Allow-in” represents the most crucial set of CoSTS because complementors/blockers often are the most challenging of stakeholders.  Allow-in introduces five CoSTS that will keep complementors from becoming blockers, convert blockers to complementors and help you get around immovable blockers.  The first approach is to invite them into the bee-in process.  If they choose not to participate then a second approach is to engage them with buy-in through creating value for the complementor so that they will support your project.  A third approach is to engage in a “gift-exchange”–doing something for them with the expectation that they will do something for you.  These first three CoSTS provide different ways to create value for complementors. The final two approaches, which are to be avoided if at all possible, are to rely on coalition building and, ultimately, authority to twist blockers’ arms or to go around them altogether.

Keep stakeholders happy. The third and final idea focuses on keeping stakeholders from experiencing disrespect, envy, anger, and fear (DEAF).  If the embers of these emotions are fanned then the flames of stakeholder emotion will make them DEAF to your change efforts. Becoming DEAF increases the likelihood that stakeholders will become blockers and actively resist or undermine your leadership.

These three ideas and the CoSTS they represent combine to form what I call “leading at the crossroads of change.”  Building extraordinary capabilities is the desire of practically every attempt at innovation and leading change.  Yet, few succeed, in part, because most approaches to leading change are designed either for the top or the bottom of the organization, not for the middle.  I believe that these three ideas can help you increase your likelihood of successfully building extraordinary capabilities when leading change from the middle.

Duce a mente (May you lead by thinking)

Bejoy Mathew, PMBA 35, shares seven skills that every leader needs in an article, “The Seven F’s of Leadership,” published in the February issue of Leadership Excellence (p. 13). Here’s the list of f-words; read the article for the details:

1. Focus
2. Futuristic
3. Factual
4. Fairness
5. Flexible
6. Friendly
7. Fearless

The Executive MBA cohorts from St. Louis and Kansas City rejoined each other for the kickoff of Leadership Residency at the Charles F. Knight Executive Education Center on Sunday, February 8. Following an afternoon in the classroom, they set off to enjoy the sights and sounds of St. Louis as a collective cohort.

Leadership Residency is the hallmark of Olin’s Executive MBA program when midway through the 20-month curriculum, the cohorts come together for a week of assessments, peer feedback and internal and external reflection. Students through the years call Leadership Residency a transformative experience.

EMBA 44’s residency included a visit from Jerry Bowe, CEO of Vi-Jon. Jerry joined the executive students to share his path to leadership and what he learned along the way, including 15 tips to keep in your pocket as you increase your responsibility in an organization, a community or otherwise. Among the 15 tips were:

• Don’t believe your own press or it will kill you
• Stay grounded; stay humble
• Get out of the office and embrace the people in your organization.
• Always act with integrity
• Learn from but forget your mistakes
• Encourage debate
• Too many priorities means there is no priority
• Define key metrics and watch them
• Be optimistic

Two members of Executive MBA 44 experience Jerry in action daily as members of the Vi-Jon team. Stephanie Truitt heads up Human Resources for the organization and Krista Whaley oversees the company’s quality control.

Following a thoughtful Q&A session with Jerry, the students headed to their breakout rooms for the continuation of Leadership Residency assessments, discussion and learning.

About Jerry Bowe
Jerry Bowe joined Vi-Jon in July 2011 as Chief Executive Officer. For the last twenty years, Jerry has been leading companies in manufacturing and service related businesses.

From 2008 to 2011, Jerry served as Chief Executive Officer of the holding company for Masterplan and ReMedPar, two businesses which service and supply parts for clinical engineering and diagnostic imaging devices in hospitals. Prior to his assignment at Masterplan, Jerry was the Chairman of Avery Weigh-Tronix, Inc. Jerry joined the company as Chief Executive Officer in May 2002 and was promoted to Chairman in 2007. Avery Weigh-Tronix is a leading manufacturer of electronic weighing components and systems for the industrial, commercial retail and consumer markets. Prior to joining Avery Weigh-Tronix, Jerry held a number of positions with Malden Mills Industries, Inc., a leading textile manufacturer, including Chief Operating Officer between 1981 and early 2002. Jerry was a consultant and manager at Bain & Company from 1983 to 1988; a consultant at Arthur D. Little Company, Inc. from 1981 to 1983; and a manager at International Paper Inc. from 1976 to 1978.

Jerry received his B.A. from Dartmouth College and his M.B.A. from the Amos Tuck School of Business Administration.

Pictured above: Jerry Bowe, Vi-Jon CEO with Executive MBA students and Vi-Jon leaders, Stephanie Truitt and Krista Whaley, and Professor Stuart Bunderson

How to lead them off the path of least resistance and inspire innovative thinking.

Q: I find that many on my team take the path of least resistance. I want them to think a little harder and more critically about the tasks in front of them. How can I, as a leader, get my team to think outside the box and perhaps spur some innovation? 

—Anonymous

Time is fleeting. You have 20 things to do today and it is noon with only four items accomplished. How will you finish the rest along with responding to the 100 urgent emails you received today?

If these or similar thoughts are streaming through your head on a regular basis, then it may be no surprise that your employees take the path of least resistance. Who wouldn’t under the daily barrage of pressures to get things done? People often don’t want to think outside the box because they are too busy trying to keep the box from closing in and crushing them. How then can a team leader spur innovative thinking?

If your employees are under pressure, then not only are they looking for a quick way to check the box, they likely have developed a mind-set that may be difficult to change. It is easy to rely on existing routines to get things done quickly and punch the next item on the list. In this deep groove, people resist responding to requests for innovative ideas.

To be candid, I am no expert on the psychology of changing mind-sets. Nonetheless, I have worked to change my own, as well as other people’s, with some degree of success. Here’s
one approach.

GET THEIR ATTENTION

First, recognize that changing a mind-set is like competing for a brain’s scarce resource—attention. This competition is between the way the brain currently thinks (processing beliefs, feelings and values) and the way you would like it to think (being creative and innovative to add value). To influence people’s mind-set you have to be willing to compete for their attention.

ASK YOURSELF QUESTIONS

Second, capture attention by asking questions. Those seeking to improve happiness, for instance, ask questions with positive assumptions behind them. For example, asking “What has my team done recently that I can appreciate?” assumes employees have accomplished something of value. The mere act of authentically asking this question causes your own brain to allocate some of its limited attention, at least for a while, to search for an answer.

Winning the competition, though, requires you to ask such questions every day. Moreover, asking first thing every morning primes the brain to keep reconsidering the questions throughout the day. The more you ask yourself these types of appreciative and positive questions the more you are changing your mind-set.

ASK THEM QUESTIONS

Third, you can work to change the mind-set of others in a similar way. Ask questions that encourage your team to think outside the box. Or engage in activities like innovation competitions focused on specific challenges that will stimulate new ways of approaching tasks. If narrowly constructed and discussed daily, such challenges can fundamentally transform mind-sets.

For example, you could ask: How can we create new value for our customers? How can we increase quality and lower costs? How can we make our job easier yet deliver more value? What pain for our organization can we discover today and work to remedy? A little training and illustrations of successful answers can go a long way toward helping people think more clearly about what these questions imply.

Discover the questions that work for your team, and encourage employees to ask themselves those questions every morning. If they think outside the box, find a way to reward them. This may be as simple as expressing your appreciation or acknowledging their contribution during a meeting. Asking questions that capture their attention and rewarding new mind-sets offer at least one path to getting your team out of its box.

Duce a mente 

(May you lead by thinking)

Image: Checklist “One Done” by Daniel Kulinski, Flickr Creative Commons

On November 19, 2014 Brookings Executive Education (BEE), with support from Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH), hosted a one day seminar on the Future of the Senior Executive Service (SES). The co-chair of the event, Dr. Ron Sanders, chairman of BEE’s Advisory Board, BEE adjunct faculty, and Vice President/Senior Fellow at BAH wrote the following summary of the event (posted on Federal Times, 12/3/14).

Back to the Future: A Brookings Executive Education Summit charts a Course for ‘Modernizing’ the SES

A Quiet Crisis? Established by the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act, the Senior Executive Service (SES) is one of our Federal government’s most important and—except for the occasional scandal—least visible institutions. Key to making government work, its over 7,000 members operate at the ‘boundary layer’ between politics and policy on one hand, and effective execution on the other.

And as the SES approaches the half-century mark, it’s no exaggeration to suggest that it is at risk. The well-publicized malfeasance of just a few of its members has put it squarely in the cross-hairs of Congress and the public, but while the headlines will fade, the demographics won’t…by next year, fully 64% of current SES members will be retirement-eligible, and the best and brightest of their replacements—current GS-14s and 15s—no longer automatically aspire to its lofty but increasingly tarnished status.

A Possible Blueprint for SES Reform? With that daunting backdrop, over two dozen current and former senior government executives—senior career and appointed leaders who have served both Republican and Democratic administrations—recently convened at the Brookings Institution for a day-long ‘summit’ on the future of the SES.  Sponsored by Brookings Executive Education and Booz Allen Hamilton, the summit’s proceedings (to be published next spring by Brookings Press as part of its Innovations in Leadership book series) are intended to serve as a blueprint for modernizing the SES…while preserving its original vision and values.

The summit was keynoted by OMB Deputy Director Beth Cobert and OPM Director Katherine Archuleta, and participants included Ambassador Pat Kennedy, Under Secretary of State for Management; Chris Mihm, GAO Director for Strategic Issues; Prof. Don Kettl, Dean of the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy; Sean O’Keefe, former NASA Administrator; Thad Allen, former Commandant of the Coast Guard; Bob Hale, former DOD Comptroller; Scott Gould, former VA Deputy Secretary; and Christine Fox, former Acting Deputy Secretary of Defense.

Other participants included Tish Long, former Director of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency; Rafael Borras, former DHS Under Secretary for Management; Beth McGrath, former DOD Deputy Chief Management Officer; Danny Werfel, former OMB Comptroller and Acting IRS Commissioner, and Dan Blair, President of the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA). Hosted by Mary Ellen Joyce, new NAPA Fellow and executive director of Brookings Executive Education and myself, the event was moderated by Tim Clark, NAPA Fellow and Editor at Large for the Government Executive Media Group.

Among other things, summit participants unanimously agreed that the original, founding vision of the SES—a mobile corps of career executives intended to provide non-partisan leadership in service of ‘the government of the day’—was worth preserving and protecting, as critical today as it was at its birth almost fifty years ago. However, we also concluded that the SES needed to be modernized if it is to realize that vision in this, the second decade of the 21^st century. For example:

A Brookings Executive Education Summit charts a Course for ‘Modernizing’ the SES. USOPM Photo By: Tim Grant

Modernize the ECQs? Summit participants all agreed that one area in desperate need of modernization was OPM’s set of Executive Core Qualifications (ECQs). Essentially the ‘admissions test’ for new SES members, the ECQs have been around since its inception, and while some of them may represent timeless leadership qualities, those core competencies need to be refreshed to include emerging, 21^st century senior leadership requirements—things like the ability to manage chaos and complexity, connect the dots, ‘see around corners’ to anticipate the next crisis, and lead multiple agencies towards a common goal without benefit of formal authority…in other words, the ability to effectively lead the entire Federal ‘enterprise’ and not just a single agency.

Abandon CDPs and QRBs? Summit participants also questioned the efficacy of Candidate Development Programs (CDPs) and Qualifications Review Boards (QRBs). Both have been around since the inception of the SES, and almost no one at the summit believed they were meeting their intended purpose. Less than a third of new SES members are being selected from CDPs—IRS offers a notable exception in that regard—suggesting that in their present form, they are simply not worth the investment. Participants had a similar view of the QRB process, noting that it was largely a paper exercise that had little chance of screening out unqualified SES selectees.

While some argued that the way to ensure the viability of CDPs would be to make them the mandatory source for SES selections (like the military’s Officer Candidate Schools), there was a general consensus that both CDPs and the QRB process needed substantial re-engineering. Many argued that the QRB function should be delegated to agencies, with some sort of OPM post-audit. Others suggested that agencies (or OPM) employ rigorous, simulation-based assessment centers to more effectively evaluate CDP applicants and/or even those proposed for promotion to the SES. Interestingly, IRS employs a similar approach, one that is arduously front-end loaded to maximize post-program success…and they enjoy a 98% CDP-to-SES selection rate.

Make Mobility Mandatory? According to the summit’s participants, executive mobility remains one of the most important elements of the SES’s original vision, and one of its biggest disappointments. With only a few exceptions—the US Intelligence Community’s civilian ‘joint duty’ requirement for one—the SES corps remains organizationally and functionally stove-piped. That said, summit participants (most of whom had held multiple leadership positions in and out of government) all argued that mobility added immeasurably to an executive’s development, and many advocated making it mandatory, like the military, the Senior Foreign Service, and the IC.

Short of that, many noted that mobility could be significantly improved if OPM and/or OMB were to proactively facilitate voluntary individual reassignments. For example, participants suggested things like a ‘super Executive Resources Board’ to guide interagency executive placements, perhaps assisted by an internal, OPM or OMB-based executive search operation. Even something as seemingly-simple as a searchable database of executive dossiers would help, so that cabinet officers in search of career executive talent could look beyond their internal candidate pool. In that regard, everyone agreed that posting SES vacancies on USA Jobs was largely an exercise in square-filling, with little hope of actually producing viable candidates.

Carrot-and-Stick Accountability? Finally (and inevitably), summit participants also discussed the issue of SES accountability, termination, and expedited appeal rights, all stemming from recent VA legislation. While those with private sector experience noted that ‘at will’ employment is the standard there, everyone agreed on the need for some due process protections for career senior executives, at the very least to guard against politicization, and many were reserving judgment regarding the new VA process. As always, the proof will be in its implementation, but many suggested that it may have a ‘chilling effect’ on VA’s SES corps, as well as on its succession pool. That development notwithstanding, most argued that greater SES accountability (not to mention greater more mobility and responsibility) is a good thing, but it should be offset by increased salary potential—in other words, greater risk should entail greater reward. However, that would require legislation, and in the face of congressional and public antipathy, summit participants were pessimistic in that regard.

Bottom Line: Just Do It. That’s a quick-and-dirty summary of the SES Summit (we plan to provide more details in advance of the Brookings book), but if there’s some good news in all of this, it’s that aside from compensation reforms, almost all of the suggestions considered by the Summit—modernized ECQs, simulation-based assessments, delegated QRBs, facilitated mobility—can be implemented without legislation…and could even mitigate against some of the more extreme proposals currently being considered on the Hill.

In that regard, we all applauded recent SES improvements undertaken by the Administration…as well as the leadership and commitment to this worthy cause demonstrated by OMB Deputy Director Beth Cobert, OPM Director Katherine Archuleta, and their political and career staffs. Those initiatives, which include a new on-boarding program, a series of agency-based SES pilots, and the President’s planned meeting with SES members, left summit participants with some cause for optimism, and we all pledged to continue our individual and collective efforts to support them.

Photo credit: USOPM Photo By: Tim Grant