9-8-10 Are You A Bad Executive?

I read a blog entry today…. On BNET, by Steve Tobak about the “7 signs you may be a bad manager”. I recommend that you read the article. You can find it here.

7 Signs You May Be a Bad Manager by Steve Tobak.

Be sure to come back. I’ll wait…….

While I won’t recreate Tobak’s list here, I would like to draw a couple of parallels with the Executive Skills and Traits model that I’ve relentlessly discussed on this blog (12-30-09 Morphing to a Model).

For example, one to the signs mentioned by Tobak is that your “allies are distancing themselves from you”. One of the Communication Skills that I’ve discussed on several occasions is the need for the new/aspiring executive to create and maintain a network (1-4-10 Let's Talk). One of the members in your network should absolutely be the person you turn to for reality checks. For me, that was my executive coach. I’ve talked about this role in the past (2-8-10 Shoulda Told Me #6). Let’s face it, if you are developing into a bad executive, it isn’t happening overnight. There are indications that other people see as it is happening. So your executive coach or sounding board or whatever you choose to call it has to be the person that is willing and able to give you the figurative slap upside the head when you are being an ass.

Another sign discussed by Tobak that you are a bad manager is that “your decision-making is compromised”. Being decisive is a critical Execution Skill for the executive (1-13-10 Execution Skills -- Now go DO something!). Does every decision you make lately seem to turn into crap? And more importantly, have you been able to rationalize each bad outcome? If so, then yes, you are headed down the road of a bad executive. You need to step back and analyze your outcomes -- ask yourself some questions. What key item did I miss leading up to the decision? Did I ignore someone that I should’ve listened to? Did I not get the right people involved? And as important, you can’t let a few poor decisions freeze you from future action.

Take some time to analyze your performance, your interactions, and your organization. Get feedback. Then take action so that you aren’t one of those bad executives that everyone loves to talk about.

Cheers!

8-20-10 Links to the Past

Continuing to re-visit comments from my survey participants……

I ran across one comment that I both agree and disagree with. Strange, but true.

When I asked my survey participants to tell me what one thing they wished they had known when they became an executive, I got this comment.

“The importance of networking. Once at the executive level, the direct links to getting tactical tasks are broken. You have to know who to go to and how to work as a team.”

Of course, we know from the Executive Skills and Traits model that networking is an important part of the communication skill set (12-30-09 Morphing to a Model and 1-4-10 Let’s Talk). So you can imagine that I agree with the importance of networking. I also agree with the idea that you have to know who to go to and also how to work as a team.

Where my survey participant and I diverge in opinion is on the idea that when you get promoted, the direct links are broken. In fact, I heartily disagree with him. My belief is that unless you royally piss off a member of your network, you never actually lose or break the link to him/her.

Yes, some members of your network might go “dormant”, for lack of a better word. That is just human nature. As we move on to new phases of our lives, there are some members of our network that we will see or talk to less frequently. The time between contacts will lengthen. And the conversation, we when do meet, can be stilted because of the lack of use. Dormancy, however, doesn’t mean the link is permanently severed.

What is does mean is that you haven’t done a good job of tending to your network. This is one task that you should deliberately schedule. Make time to call or see people that were an important part of your past. Some will think it a waste of time, but you never know what might come of this. You might pick up new ideas for a product or service. You might find that you can do your contact a favor in his/her current career stage. Or you might find that he/she is in a position to help you.

And after all, isn’t that what networks are for?

Cheers!

6-25-10 Renewing Old Friendships

For me it is always a good day when I learn something new. And today, I learned something new.

I just spent the afternoon with a high-school friend….. My best friend in those days. As happens a lot in real life, we had lost contact with each other over the years. It had been 30 years since we’ve seen or talked to each other. So I learned a lot today…. About my friend and her life over the past 3 decades. It was an absolutely delightful afternoon.

And I re-learned something else. Each executive’s network should be made up of both old and new friends, colleagues, etc. Yeah, I already knew that. Heck, I’ve talked about that more than once in this blog. And one of the key executive skills from my model is all about building your network (1-4-10 Let's Talk).

But “knowing” something and actually implementing the knowledge are two completely different things. I realized today that I “knew” how important the network was in my life, but I hadn’t actually taken an active role in maintaining the relationships that should be an important part of my network.

I also realized that it is important for each executive’s network to be made up of a variety of people, with a variety of backgrounds. It doesn’t have to include just your work relationships. Your network should have people from all the aspects of your life --- work, church, volunteer activities, college, and yes, even high school. There is so much to learn from all of the people that touch your life. And when you let both old and new relationships go stale, you miss out on so much.

The beauty of a network is that you can always renew and reinforce the relationships, no matter how much time has passed. Sure the relationships might have changed/evolved, but they are still there for your learning and enjoyment.

So, take some time and check your network. Is it balanced? With all types of people and all types of backgrounds? Have you told the people in your network how important they are to you? I guess it comes down to…… did you make an effort to nurture the relationships?

Cheers!

5-23-10 Selling Access

I saw in the news today that Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York (is she still called that after the divorce? Hmmmm) was caught trying to peddle access to Prince Andrew. Interesting concept, eh? The news folks all seem to be in an uproar about that. And while I think it is more than a bit tacky, is it really any different that what we face in business life everyday?

For example, our networks are a form of currency. We do a favor for this person, and someday, will likely get a favor in return. It isn’t a good or bad thing…. It just is.

Or another example, you take a client out to lunch or dinner. Yes, part of it is building relationships. But another part of it is that you are planning to get some business from this client in return for the lunch. Again, not good or bad. It just is.

Or another example, you are hired for a specific job simply because of the contacts you have in your industry. Because of your contacts, you can open doors that were previously closed to your new company. They are hiring and paying you for your influence. Not good or bad. It just is.

A final example…. The administrative assistant. If you are smart, you never alienate anyone’s assistant. Because, in fact, that assistant is the one that controls the access to the executive -- which is, of course, a form of influence. And believe me, if you piss her off (and yes, it is usually a “her”), you will never get the face time you need with an executive.

Again, it is neither good nor bad. In fact, the assistant is PAID to control access to the executive (among other things, of course). And I’m not dissing this function. If you’ve read my previous post about admins (2-22-10 Did ya notice?), you will realize that I revere the person and the position.

So what can the new/aspiring exec learn from Ms. Ferguson’s problems? Of course, the obvious thing is that you shouldn’t get caught on videotape. Kidding. (Actually I’m not kidding, but dealing with the media is a whole ’nother post.) You should learn that selling influence is common, although perhaps not as crass as her actions. And you should learn that you must not peddle influence dishonestly. And you should learn that influence can appear in the most unlikely positions and locations (like an assistant), so never underestimate the person you are talking to.

Cheers!

5-21-10 One Year Anniversary

Wow, it was one year ago today that I retired. Hard to believe the time has gone by so quickly. As I was leaving that last day, I remember that I sent my husband a text…. C’est finis (it is finished). What I realize now is that I should have sent him this text instead. Il est juste de commencer (it is just starting).

Okay, so what the heck does this have to do with the new/aspiring executive? Well it opens up the avenue for a discussion about career change, of course. I’d say that I went through a major career change when I retired. And that is added to just a long list of previous career changes. My husband used to tease me that I couldn’t hold a job. And he’s probably right. I’ve worked in five different disciplines over the past 25 or so years (IT, finance, operations, program management, sales and marketing). And within each of those, I held multiple jobs. So it is fair to say that I have a wide range of experience when it comes to career change. And really, what is retirement, if not a career change??

There are plenty of studies out there that talk about how the average worker will make multiple career changes in their work lives. And my own model identifies managing change and ambiguity as a critical executive skill (12-3-09 Morphing to a Model and 1-13-10 Now Go Do Something).

So why does this come to mind now (besides the obvious reason of my anniversary)? I’ve been emailing with one of my previous co-workers and her news seems to have brought the entire subject of career change to the forefront of my mind. She (along with her family) is transferring from the Midwest to the southeastern seaboard. Same company, new position, and really new location. I’d say that qualifies as a major career change! (Good luck, Taylor! I know that you will do just fine!).

I’ve had this career change discussion with many of my co-workers over the years. Here’s how it usually goes. When you get the new assignment, the excitement is very high. How can one NOT be excited about a new job? And for the first month or two in the new position, everything is new and exciting. You are meeting new people, learning new things, etc. Things are looking very rosy.

And then, a month or two into the new assignment, you find yourself thinking…… What WAS I thinking when I accepted this job?! I don’t know anything about this position. You begin doubting your wisdom of accepting the new assignment, doubting your ability to do the job, and doubting your desire to accept the new responsibilities. You may even find yourself wishing for the safety and security of your old job.

You have to push past this. And you will. You likely wouldn’t have gotten the assignment if someone didn’t believe that your skills and abilities were a good fit. You just have to find how those skills and abilities fit within the new context. It comes down to relying on your experience as well as relying on your network to get settled into the new function. In fact, you will likely find that your network is a critical aspect of learning about and successfully executing your new job (1-4-10 Let’s Talk). After about six months or so, you will find that you are wondering why you ever doubted the wisdom of your decision to make the career move. Congratulations. You are well and truly settled into your new assignment.

Cheers!

5-14-10 You Can't Do Everything

Continuing the theme of discussing survey participant extra input and comments…..

One of my participants talked a little about outsourcing. His comment was that his department was utilizing resources from both Russia and India. “Many of our engineers do not like the idea of sending work outside our country (and company!) and are not supporting this effort. Without their engagement, it becomes very difficult to get full potential from foreign partners.”

Okay, yeah, in the US outsourcing has a really bad name. Moving jobs off-shore, and all that. But the fact is there isn’t any company that can do EVERYTHING. In this case, we just couldn’t hire enough engineers (of all types) to get all the work done on a timely basis. So the thinking was, let’s move some of the grunt work, like drafting functions, to off-shore firms. That would free up our very experienced engineers to do the critical functions like stress and design.

But it seemed that no matter how we explained it, our engineers weren’t buying into the concept. And if they don’t buy in, then they don’t provide the guidance and the interface that their foreign counterparts need to do their jobs. And you end up with elegantly designed product that comes out like crap in the drawings. Not a good situation.

So how to solve this problem? Given that there was no choice about outsourcing to foreign firms, there are a couple of potential solutions.

For example, it helps to bring a large cadre of the foreign engineers in-house for an extended period of time. It aids in developing the engineer-to-engineer relationships that are needed for the long haul. After you have set next to and worked directly with someone for the last 4 or 6 months, it is very difficult to ignore their phone calls or requests for information later on. It is all about establishing the one to one relationships.

Another solution is to recruit a senior engineer and place him/her in country with the contract firm. This person then becomes the liaison between the engineers at home and the engineers in the foreign organization. It has to be a senior engineer…. One that has not only the technical experience but also has the network of contacts throughout the home organization. He/she then uses these established home office relationships to get the data and information that the contract firm needs to be successful.

You’ll notice that both solutions are all about relationships. Probably the first solution is better than the second in terms of relationships. This is simply because it establishes multiple person-to-person relationships between the organizations rather than a single conduit between organizations. However, both are viable alternatives to those times where your organization just can’t do everything.

Cheers!

2-5-10 The Executive Sleuth

I’ve been reading a fair amount of fiction here lately. Yea, when you are retired, you actually DO have time to read. It’s wonderful. Anyway, I seem to be stuck on murder mysteries lately. But not just any type….. Only the ones where the featured character is an amateur or unwilling or even inept sleuth. Think Janet Evanovich or Susan Wittig Albert.

At the gym today, I was pondering the correlation of the sleuth to the executive. Believe me, at the gym, you can make any kind of connection just to make the time pass more quickly! And I realized that there are a few intersections between what one of the amateur sleuths do in my books with what an executive does in real life.

For example, in the books, the amateur sleuth works very hard to gather what seems to be random bits of information. There are two key elements here…. The amateur sleuth works hard by communicating (1-4-10 Let‘s Talk). More specifically polling her network of informants, listening to what they have to say, and filing the info away for future use. This is what an executive does, both in problem-solving mode and in day-to-day activities.

The second key element is random bits of information. I mean, really, in those books the amateur sleuth is bombarded by seeming random bits of data that she will ultimately use to solve the murder. And while an executive rarely has to solve a murder, he/she is bombarded with random bits of data all day long. The issue for the executive is to synthesize the data such that it is meaningful and useful in the business (1-13-10 Execution Skills -- Now go DO something!)

Another intersection between the amateur sleuth and the executive is less obvious. Oftentimes, in my mystery books, the sleuth will simply blunder into information that she doesn’t want to know (TMI!), or into a situation where she doesn’t want to be, or even blunder into the “aha” moment where she unmasks the killer.

Unfortunately, we executives often blunder into things as well. Despite what some would have you believe, executives aren’t perfect. Just listen to the media! It’s what we do with our blunders that make a difference between a successful executive and one that isn’t. Let’s say you blunder into some adverse information about a co-worker or a customer or a supplier. What do you do about? In my experience, most executives stick their head in the sand and ignore it. Is that the right thing to do? Well, it depends on the information. Some information is best ignored. But other information, that say, impacts your company, must be acted upon. Many execs don’t have the nerve to do this.

A final observation about the sleuth in my books. Since a good, satisfying read is a requirement for these books, the amateur sleuth always pulls together the random data, which leads to the culprit and neatly solves the crime by the end of the book. Unfortunately, for the executive, it isn’t usually that neat. Business is messy. The data doesn’t always lead us the right direction. Our gut instincts sometimes fail us. And at the end of the day, we don’t always solve the mystery or problem. But that’s okay, because real life in business isn’t fiction!

Cheers!

Let's Talk

Okay, some more discussion about the various aspects of the Executive Skills/Traits Model…….

As discussed last time, the communication function consists of the following skills: listen, network, and speak.

Listening. Of course, this is an important skill for any business person. But it is vitally important to the success of the new executive. Think of it this way. Most times, the new executive is promoted to an area where he/she has no first-hand knowledge or experience. So unless the new executive actively listens to the experienced people in the organization, the executive is unlikely to find much success. In this context, active listening will be reflected in the decisions and strategic moves that the executive will make during his/her tenure.

Network. There are multiple layers to the network that the new or aspiring executive must have…… with peers, subordinates, customers, suppliers, etc. The fact is, most executives are not the “doers” of the organization. The hands-on work of the organization is actually conducted by others. So the executive must have an extensive network in order to get things done through others. Let’s face it, the business world is a place of what I call “favors”. I do this for you today and then sometime in the future, I can call on you (a member of my network) to do that for me. In reality, the new executive has been building his/her network since the moment he/she walked in the door to a new job --- WAY before becoming an executive or even a manager.

In addition, a network eases decision-making. In most companies, organizational decisions are arrived at by consensus within the executive team. By establishing a network among his/her peers, the executive is more likely to be able to build the necessary support for his/her ideas and initiatives.

Speak. Of course, oral communication skills are important at any level of the organization. And in fact, many times the new executive has been promoted because of (at least in part) his/her speaking skill. In the functions of an executive however, the skill will typically have a much broader range, with communication occurring at many levels both within and outside the organization. To be successful, the new executive must be able to tailor his/her speech content and patterns to the audience. (Don’t you just hate listening to a speaker that is not taking the non-verbal cues that the audience is sending?!) Additionally, as an executive for a company, he/she is more likely to become an external representative for the company. This means contact with the media (a whole other discussion, to be sure) or with non-business related public (think non-profits, politicians, etc.). In such cases, the executive must have the public speaking and interaction skills to successfully represent the organization.

So what? Well, it is unlikely that you were promoted to the executive payroll if you have poor communication skills. But, and this is a big but, how often do you “check” your communication skills? How often do you catch yourself formulating an answer even before the other person quits speaking? If you are doing this, then you are not practicing active listening. Or, how often do you “tend” your networks? They don’t maintain themselves. You must actively work to keep the various channels in your network open. And finally, you probably have a lot of experience using your oral communication skills to give presentations. But have you consciously checked those skills lately? Have you developed some bad habits, like saying “um” or “like” every other word? Or jingling your change in your pocket? Bad habits can creep in.

Let’s face it folks ---- if your communication skills irritate the people around you (bosses, peers, subordinates, etc.), you will not succeed as an executive.

Participant Observations (or the inside skinny)

If you have been reading along with me, by now you know why I did the research, background for the research, what the research was, and some preliminary results. Today, I’ll take a look at some general observations made by the participants.

The participant observations came as I was analyzing the data by demographic category. For example, within the execution function, the only intersection of agreement between males and females was the ability to be decisive. As related by one executive, “many/most times decisions are elevated due to lack of a clear-cut ‘answer’. Being able to listen to opposing arguments and make a decisions is critical to executive leadership. If it was easy, the team would have already decided”. But I also learned that as important as being decisive is also to have the skill to delegate not only a task but also the decisions related to the task. So the “skill” isn’t a narrow focus on decision-making. It is expanded to acknowledge the need for the executive to understand when he/she should step up and make the decision as well as know when to delegate the decision to other levels.

When I analyzed the results based on the level of the executive respondent, I discovered that within the vision function, there is clear agreement that as a person moves into the executive ranks, he/she should must also move from the day-to-day (or tactical) management to a longer-term or strategic view. One executive told me, “in my first executive assignment, I focused on solving day-to-day problems and the organization I led did not have a clear, well-communicated strategy. This limited the effectiveness of the organization and sent the wrong signals about what was necessary for long-term success”. Clearly, it is important for the new or aspiring executive to figure out how to make the transition to strategic management.

Within the functional organization demographic, I found agreement that the new executive must have, and use, the skills of empowerment and teaching/mentoring. The responses relative to this went from the purely practical (if you don’t empower, you end up doing the day-to-day stuff), to the more esoteric idea of ownership and buy-in. One executive summed this up very well, “if you are the smartest (or busiest) person in the organization, you probably need to make some changes”. Wise advice, indeed.

One theme I heard, over and over, in the structured and in the open-ended questions was relative to the communication function. These executives could not stress enough the need to have the skill for establishing interpersonal relationships, which they tended to use interchangeably with the skill for development personal networks. In addition, they approached this need via varying avenues. For example, one executive discussed the need to create a sound network within his/her peer group -- “I wish I had been more incisive about the fragile egos and personalities of existing executives”. Solid peer-to-peer relationships would have allowed him/her to ask questions or challenge ideas without creating defensiveness. Another application of the networking skill concerns getting work done through the “right channel” within the organization -- or more specifically, getting the right support to get an idea moved forward. “At the executive level, decisions often get made based upon trust and relationships. There aren’t always policies, procedures, or protocols in place to drive decisions that need to be made. They’re based upon a mutual trusting relationship.” Clearly there is a need for the new and aspiring executive to carefully (and honestly) build his/her network of relationships. This idea of building your network is clearly a critical factor for the success of an executive.

Next time? How the conceptual model morphed from a concept to a final model for executive skills and traits.

Cheers!