Peter Drucker and Decision Making-part one

How many times have you been in meetings where decisions are made and yet when you look back, you find that absolutely nothing has been done?  I read a quote from the late Peter Drucker who noted several key points about the difference between decision making and action.  He noted that

1. doing the right thing even if not perfectly executed is far superior than to perfectly executing the wrong thing.
2. decisions need commitment to become action, without action no progress is made, and
3. a decision remains inert until resources are allocated for it’s implementation.

So, what sort of actions do you need to take to move forward decisions that you have made?  Take a moment to break down and write down what specific next action needs to be made to move your strategic priorities forward.  They can be at the organizational level or at the personal level ( for example, take 10 minutes each day to stretch and increase my flexibility.)

Chris

A Great Piece of Advice?

It’s that time of year when New Year resolutions get caught up in the everyday clutter of the “tyranny of the now”.  Last month,  I had the opportunity to talk with two gentlemen during my wife’s school’s December get-together. I was a “trailing spouse” and recognized two gentlemen with whom we’ve sat near each other at various school events.

These two gentlemen are very well regarded by their peers and by the senior leadership in their organization. After the usual pleasantries, I asked, “You’re both considered highly successful both personally and professionally. I’m certain people come to you for advice.  What’s a great piece of advice YOU have received that has helped you in your personal and professional lives?”

One answered quickly, “Write your summary of what you accomplished during your current tenure as soon as you start a new job.  You want to start with what you want to accomplish in your current role early on so that you maintain focus when the urgencies threaten to take over your priorities.  I keep mine beside my desk and refer to it weekly.  That discipline of weekly referral helps me as I shape my calendar and my priorities for the upcoming week.  I got this advice long ago from a mid-level manager who was great at developing talent on her team.”

The other answered, “That’s a great piece of advice.  I’m going to have to use that. Thanks.  Here’s a great piece of advice I received when I got my first management job-Don’t embarrass your mother.  It’s a variation on the theme of being comfortable of your actions, words, and behaviors being on the front page of the newspaper, but the idea of not embarrassing your mother makes it more real to me.  In this age of texts, emails, and voice mails being saved for a LONG time, I use this piece of advice as a little voice in the back of my head when dealing with thorny issues.  It’s served me well over the years.”

Two great pieces of advice. Now it’s YOUR turn.  What’s a great piece of advice that you have received?

I’m looking forward to reading your responses and learning from you.

All the best,

Chris

Next Post in January

I will be spending time with my family and friends.  Look for my next post in January.

Have a safe, restful, and joyous holiday season.   Send up prayers to our Servicemen and women who are standing in harms way and away from family during this holiday season as well.

All the best,

Chris

Best Travel Tips?

The holidays and holiday travel season is upon us.  This short post is a request for the community to share any great travel tips they have for less stressful travel.  One of the podcasts series I listen to is ManagerTools.  One of their casts discussed great travel tips.  I’ve adapted a couple of their ideas and added some of my own.  Full disclaimer.  I used to try to surf the web and get the best deal on different aggregator websites.  I’m now a BIG believer in using a travel agent.  it just took one flight cancellation out of Portland OR coming back to the East Coast for me to be a believer. If you want a recommendation, I can certainly give a ringing endorsement to my travel agent, Janine.

Here are three tips I have learned:

1-Choose a primary airline. Base your decision on where you fly most frequently and whether the airline has a hub near you.

2-Get and use a travel agent-see above.

3-Enroll in a Frequent Flyer program.  Look especially at those programs that allow you to double dip and use your points for things other than simply flight miles-gives you many more options.

Now what are yours? Please comment below.

All the best,

Chris

Watching Pros at Work

It’s exciting and gratifying to sit in the background and watch some pros at work.  That is part of the allure of professional sports, professionals in the arts, and experts in different fields.  This past week, I got a chance to sit and watch some true professionals in executive education in two programs this week.

We worked this past week with two groups of very senior executives.  Part of the challenge of the work was asking the pros to condense their work into a more compressed timeframe, while at the same time giving the senior executives time to apply and discuss the key learning outcomes in their areas of expertise.  While I wasn’t surprised by these pros being able to do this, it was still impressive to watch as the pros outlined their key points in their individual sessions and then step back and ask questions like “to what extent is this happening in your organization?”  These pros then stepped to the side and moved effortlessly from the instructor to more of a “tour guide” (as one of the pros described the process for that particular session), stopping at some areas, while zipping through others that the senior executives did not find as useful or relevant.

I’ve  seen some incredible researchers who were terrible in front of clients. They claim that the client wants to hear them pontificate and tell all about their particular area of expertise, reading the slides, boring slide after boring slide with 40 words on each slide.

I’ve seen slick presenters who have a slick multimedia presentation that looks good at first, but then, people wonder where the substance is. They dazzle you with smoke and mirrors, they mouth platitudes, they fill up their entire time so that they don’t have time for questions, and then they leave immediately because they are afraid that  someone may ask them a question that they cannot answer.

This past week, I was once again privy to sitting and watching pros who had deep technical content knowledge, the wisdom to know how to help the clients best understand the main learning objectives, and were flexible and confident enough in their abilities and expertise to allow the client to take the initiative on what they wanted to accomplish during the session.

I’ve seen a number of them and I don’t take the time to recognize them for their talents.  Hats off this week to (in alphabetical order) Sridhar Balasubramanian, Peter Brews, Lisa Jones-Christenson,  Jeff Edwards, Alison Fragale, Dave Hofmann,  Atul Nerkar, and Al Segars.

Chris

Ten Reasons Why People Hate the Boss

Read this post on CIO.com this past week.  It’s a quick slide show on some serious mistakes managers and leaders may make.  I found this intriguing both on the way they presented the problem and solution (1 slide for the problem and one for the solution), as well as how they followed the presentation secrets outlined in last weeks post on dramatically improving your strategic communication.

Dramatically Improve Your Strategic Communications

Two of my colleagues, Steve May and  Heidi Schultz, both suggest that a big part of a senior leader is the ability to communicate one’s key points of strategy in a variety of formats.  One of the most common forms of strategic communication is making presentations to groups.  Many of us, (alright, almost all of us), use a presentation tool like PowerPoint or Keynote to organize our thoughts and use as  a tool for our presentations to groups large and small.

Unfortunately, May and Schultz  note, many times senior leaders can fall into a trap of using these tools as a crutch or in a way where the tool overshadows the speaker.  I’ve been in many meetings, conferences, and other public venues where participants are either whipped by presentation slides or there is so much text on the slide that you simply want to say, “Just give me the slides and I’ll read them myself.”

Two posts may give you some guidance on ways to improve your presentation skills.  Guy Kawasaki’s 10/20/30 rule and Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs gives any senior leader a concrete idea on how to make your presentation come more alive, communicate your guidance or key points more effectively, and dramatically increase your effectiveness.  The fact that they both come from Apple is no coincidence, I think.  Apple has consistently focused on design to market their products.  This extends to their various forms of communications as well.

I’ve tried their tools in my presentations and have found the transition from a text heavy format to more graphics a struggle at first.  However, I now find that using their tools and design models have forced me to know my content and key points in much greater depth than before and I have seen it translate to more confidence when I make the presentations I make to various groups and audiences.  Test them out and see if you find your strategic communications to various internal and external audiences become more engaging and interactive.

All the best,

Chris

21 Things Great Bosses Believe and Do (from Bob Sutton’s Blog)

As I was catching up on my reading this week, I ran across this blog from Bob Sutton on 21 Things Great Bosses Believe and Do.

I enjoy Bob’s work-he’s smart, irreverent, and generally hits the nail on the head.

Which one of these actions do you want to emphasize next week?

All the best,

Chris

Make a downpayment on the debt we owe our Veterans

I’ve found it awkward to try to thank someone on one particular day.  What makes one day more important to thank someone than other days.  And yet, I’ll add my words of thanks to our Veterans today.  I’m moved especially when I reflect upon what our Armed Forces has done for over 200 years, in wartime and in peace.

We’re an All Volunteer Force:  It’s easy to forget in this eight year war that the men and women who defend our country and our freedom are doing this out of their love of their country.  We are the largest and most effective fighting force on the planet and every one of the men and women who serve and have served in the Armed Forces since 1973 have volunteered to serve.  When I’m in the airport and see several young men and women in uniform, I try to stop and thank them for their service. If we are in the airport lounge together, I’ll strike up a conversation and their conversation runs to all the topics that young men and women discuss, from celebrities to pop culture to sports.  Then their flight is called, they grab their gear and go down the gate to their flight.  It’s difficult to remember that they are as young as they are.

These young men and women are being led by junior officers who in turn are being led by senior leaders at the highest levels.  In a single day, these service men and women could be in combat, rebuilding a school, engaging in diplomacy at the local level, and helping youngsters understand basic human kindness.

We owe a unpayable debt to Veterans and active service members that is large and growing.  Take a minute today and once a week to find a vet and thank their for their service, their sacrifice, and their willingness to volunteer to defend our country.

God bless each one of them.

 

Postscript 11/12/09.  Yesterday, I read a post by Mrs.Abbey Bishop, from Tom Peters blog here.  She is so much more eloquent than I. I wanted to add it to the growing chorus of thanks for our Veterans.

Building Time into Your Calendar to Think

(Crossposted on Leadertalk.org)

I heard the CEO of a Fortune 50 company speak about what the organization expects of senior leaders.  One of the points he made was that once you move to an executive role, you are expected to be able to dig into deep issues that will affect the organization both in the short term and the long term.  His next comment struck home: “You MUST make time in your calendar to think.  That  is what the organization expects of you. If you simply move from event to event, you are doing yourself and your organization a disservice.”

I’m sure I’m not alone in that I am guilty time to time of moving from one meeting to the next, scheduling them back to back and not making the time to do my homework to dig into the issue.  Mabel Miguel talks about a possible solution  to make time to think:

Use your commute time to think through a knotty problem.  Do the same if you are on a relatively short business trip (3 hours or less). Turn off the radio or iPod and simply think. Decreasing the white noise and clutter that swirls around inside your head is an effective way to get some clarity, focus, and attention.

I’ll suggest another solution.  Make an appointment with yourself to prep before going into a meeting.  Build the time into your calendar and hold that time as being as important as an appointment with another person.  Use this time to dig into the issues and come up with ideas to resolve the challenge.  I’ll wager you’ll be more effective and your organization will reap the benefits as well.