Lorne Rubis Building Character at Work and in Life

Last Sip of Goodness From That Drink With Marshall

201218 May
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Posted inBe Abundant

Key Point: As promised here is my third and final blog regarding that glass of wine with the renowned Marshall Goldsmith. Feedback has merit when done well. Its limitation is that it is focused on the past and as we all know, nothing can be done about our past actions. Goldsmith encourages the clients he coaches (all big wig CEOs) to implement a concept called “feed forward.” This approach focuses on getting guidance on behavior and what the people you care about would like to see you do: More of? Less of? Start doing? Stop doing? If you want a simple process to try this, read on.

Let’s say your goal is to be a better leader. Identify a core group of people who care enough about you to be thoughtful, frank and really want to help you improve. Ideally this group would include a combination of peers, direct reports, and your boss. Ask each of those people for just ONE day to day leadership behavior they would suggest you adopt. Ideally, working on this would be actionable and specific. An example could be, “be more present and attentive when we have our one-on-one meetings.”

Collect the data from each person and say “thank you” for their suggestion. Do not judge the ideas given to you. Regardless of how helpful or not you think the comment is… Just say “thank you.”

When you get all the data, pick just ONE key thing you are honestly willing to commit to and execute on it.

Then get a progress report on how well you’re doing. Go back to the people you asked for “feed forward” help and check to see if they see behavior change in you. “Hey, remember when you suggested I be more present at one-on-ones? How am I doing? See any improvements?” If you have, keep building more “feed forward” goals. If not, you have work to do…

Character move:

Try a “feed forward” process ASAP. It works in the office AND at home. For example, “tell me one thing I could do to be a better Dad? Son? Daughter? Partner?”
Remember to say, “thank you.” No passing judgment.
Pick one thing, commit to the behavior until it becomes a good habit, and get a report card on that specific thing.
Do it over and over… Evolve!

“Feed Forward” in The Triangle,

Lorne

Drinking With a Leadership Guru… Part 2

201215 May
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Posted inBe Abundant

Last blog I told you that you would get more “juice” from my glass of wine with Marshall Goldsmith. As promised here it is.

Key Point: Marshall works with exceptionally capable people as an executive coach. Most are CEOs of the world’s largest companies. And even these people lose their way. The only way for these high achievers to improve is to get a “mirror” and really see how their behavior is impacting others. This is more challenging than one thinks. Frankly, it’s challenging because people suck up to their bosses. The higher one goes in a company, the funnier our jokes get, and ideas more “brilliant.” We don’t like really obvious “suck ups,” but if we are honest most of us do pander (subtly) to our bosses and find it difficult to point out their shortcomings. It is even tougher than when we’re dealing with a CEO.

All CEOs (me included) have lots of confidence and big egos. And it’s that big ego that usually gets us off compass. We need to tweak behaviors that set us off course from time to time and we usually need help from people we care about, to make those course corrections. Goldsmith points out about 20 common behavioral missteps. I’m going to focus on four.

1. Winning too much. This one is an area that I personally have to improve on. I feel like I have to literally win at everything, regardless of how little or big. I’ve been so darn competitive all my life that I can lose my way if not careful. Of course a winning spirit is important, but when we do it to excess and apply it in situations that are not worth our time and energy, it limits our success. My trivial example is that I have to always be right when my wife points out my bad driving habits. Frankly she is normally right, but I argue with her anyways. Why? Does it really matter? This flaw at work can get us off course because we might unwittingly put our need to win over what’s best for the company.

2. Adding too much value. I worked for one person that just couldn’t stop when it came to adding too much value. You could come with a Nobel Prize idea and you would get, “already knew that and thought of it years ago” and/or “it’s a good idea but it would be better if…” The problem with this behavioral defect is that it totally diminishes the ownership of the idea. The irony is that often as bosses, we only add 5 percent value. What is the real contribution? Is 5 percent worth taking away the motivation the presenter? Certainly when we know something someone proposes is going to cause harm, we have an obligation to weigh in. But in most cases if we step back and focus on others winning versus us “having to add value,” we become even more successful.

3. Passing judgment. When people offer suggestions or help, we cannot pass judgment because if we do, it just pushes people away. If people want to help and the outcome is “that’s stupid,” “won’t work,” “idiot idea,” etc. it ensures people who genuinely care about helping will think better of it next time. Whatever we think of the idea, the only right response is, “thank you.” When we just acknowledge the offer to help with a “thank you” and go from there, we will eliminate pointless arguments and negative conflict.

4. Making destructive comments: When we make destructive comments it is mental graffiti. It just sticks around as an ugly memory. If the comments we’re making are not beneficial to customers, the organization, or the person we’re talking to and/or about… DON’T SAY IT! It just detracts from others and us. I especially detest the act of trashing other people. It is not respectful.

Character move:

Assess how much you are dominated by having to win all the time. Have a little talk with Mr. or Ms. Ego.
When some one presents an idea, think about the trade off of “adding too much” value versus just giving them a thumbs-up and gifting them the joy of making their own idea come alive.
Just say “THANK YOU” when someone offers suggestions intended to help. The ideas are not to be received as “good” or “bad,” but just what they are… neutral. Accept and go from there.
No destructive trash talking period. Ever. We’re not perfect but take a moment before letting that little sarcastic, cynical, gossipy tongue waggle!

Getting there from here in The Triangle,

Lorne

Lessons From Drinking With a Leadership Guru

201211 May
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Posted inBe Accountable

Key Point: What if you could spend a few hours having a glass of wine with this dude? His book What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, was ranked as America’s No. 1 best-selling business book in both The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. He is one of a select few advisors who have been asked to work with more than 80 major CEO’s and their management teams. He also delivers top-rated keynotes, seminars and workshops. He’s been a member of the board of the Peter F. Drucker Foundation for 10 years. He has been a volunteer teacher for US Army Generals, Navy Admirals, Girl Scout executives, international and American Red Cross leaders, (where he was a National Volunteer of the Year).

This man has a Ph.D. from UCLA. He teaches executive education at Dartmouth’s Tuck School and frequently speaks at other leading business schools. His work has been recognized by almost every professional organization in the leadership world. The American Management Association named him as one of 50 great thinkers and leaders who have influenced the field of management over the past 80 years. Business Week listed him as one of the most influential practitioners in the history of leadership development. He was recognized as a Fellow of the National Academy of Human Resources, America’s top HR honor. His work has been featured in a New Yorker profile, Harvard Business Review interview and Business Strategy Review cover story (London Business School).

Major business press acknowledgments include: The Wall Street Journal (one of the top 10 executive educators), Forbes (one of five most-respected executive coaches), India’s Economic Times (as one of five rajgurus of America), The UK’s Economist (one of three most credible executive advisors in the new era of business), and Fast Company (as America’s preeminent executive coach). His 23 books include: The Leader of the Future (a Business Week best-seller), Coaching for Leadership and the upcoming Developing Your Successor (in the Harvard Business Memo to the CEO series). The bio above, as many of you have already determined, belongs to the renowned Dr. Marshall Goldsmith.

On the night of May 7, I did spend a few hours over a glass of wine with Marshall. It was three of us, in the ultra hip Hotel Le Germain lounge in Calgary. Just Marshall, a big time CEO and me. That same day, before getting to Calgary, he talked to the CEO of Ford (CEO of the year , Alan Mulally), the head of The World Bank (Dr. Jim Yong Kim), Dave and me. He finally hit the big time with us (haha). I learned so much from this man during our time together that evening that I am going to share it with you over a couple of blogs.

So what did I learn? Lesson No. 1 (and you get this insight from Marshall before 99.9 percent of others).

Marshall and his Yale educated Ph.D. daughter, have been doing research on employee engagement. Here is what they are finding out (totally in sync with The Character Triangle). When we ask people active questions versus passive questions, employee engagement improves significantly.

A passive question would be, “are you engaged in your work?”

An active question would be, “did you do your best to be engaged at work?”

The point is that the person who has the most to gain from employee engagement is the employee. When active questions are asked, self-accountability emerges. When we ask passive questions, the response is environmentally driven rather than personal. (For example; the organization is responsible for me being engaged more than me taking responsibility).

Character move:

An active question begins with a phrase like: “Did I do my best to..?” Learn to distinguish active versus passive questions.
Ask yourself and your team active questions. The four BIG ones according to Marshall are: A. Did I do my best to be happy today? B. Did I do my best to find meaning today? C. Did I do my best to be engaged today? And D. Did I do my best to build positive relationships today?
Recognize that the only way people will change and commit to improve their engagement is because in their hearts they want to, AND they recognize they have the most to gain from doing so!

Active questions in the Triangle,

- Lorne

P.S. – Stay tuned for more lessons from “drinking with Marshall!”

Innovation, Creativity and You?

20128 May
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Posted inBe Abundant

Key Point: Organizations are expecting us to be creative and innovative, individually and collectively. If we are in formal leadership roles, we are also expected to develop and implement processes that ignite results-driven innovation. So is innovation kind of an unplanned spark? Current research suggests that sitting around waiting for an “ah ha” moment is definitively the wrong way to trigger right-brain creative activity.

As noted in a recent Big Think blog by Jonah Lehrer:

“What gets the alpha waves flowing, facilitating the semi-dream-state in which we’re best able to connect those unlikely dots, is a change of scenery – a long aimless walk, for example, or travel abroad. In this sense, the Internet, an endless web of discovery and rabbit holes to alternate dimensions, is an enormous creativity machine.”

What is your individual and leadership process for driving creative innovation?

Lehrer explains in his new book Imagine: How Creativity Works, that neuroscientists are focusing on inspiration as a function of the right hemisphere of the brain (the less literal half that exceeds at making associations between things that don’t obviously go together). And there is further evidence that it is often the outsider who is best able to “think outside of the box” in order to approach longstanding problems in an entirely new way. That is another reason why accelerating diversity and collaboration in its fullest sense is so important to organizations. In our financial institution we’re trying to get people to think outside of the “vault.” Diversity in every sense, along with investing in collaboration skills is a priority.

What if we could harness the web’s unique power to enable unlikely insights? That was Eli Lilly’s intention when it helped to develop InnoCentive, (a crowdsourcing site where it could post its thorniest R&D problems for anyone to solve, and reap a monetary reward). InnoCentive was designed to expand Eli Lilly’s brainpower, by tapping into a larger pool of innovators than the company could ever employ. 30 to 50 percent of the problems posted on InnoCentive were solved. A study by Karim Lakhani at Harvard Business School shows that experts outside of the field, (chemistry problems solved by physicists, engineering problems solved by chemists, etc.) solved most problems on InnoCentive.

This is further evidence that it is often the outsider who is best able to “think outside of the box,” to approach longstanding problems in an entirely new way or take the conversation in a completely different direction. This happens precisely because he/she isn’t constrained by the “common sense” of the discipline.

Character move:

Recognize that innovation and creativity is a process, individually and collectively.
Develop your own personal process and approach to innovation and creativity.
Embrace the fullest definition of diversity to embrace thinking outside the box.
Clearly defining the problem you want to solve is a skill. Cause and effect are not closely related in space and time. The up front clarity and work at getting insight on this is critical to accelerate innovation.
Harness the web to help get creative and innovative solutions. And learn about Silicon Valley’s IDEO; arguably one of the best companies in the world at translating innovation into huge commercial success.

Creativity and innovation in The Triangle,

Lorne

Character Triangle

Our character is exclusively ours. We define it by how we think and what we do. I believe that acting with Character is driven by what I call the Character Triangle.

What, exactly, is the Character Triangle (CT)?

The CT describes and emphasizes three distinct but interdependent values:

Be Accountable: first person action to make things better, avoiding blame.
Be Respectful: being present, listening, looking again, focusing on the process.
Be Abundant: generous in spirit, moving forward, minimizing the lack of.