This blog assumes that blind spots of power come with the CEO role no matter how good or true or well-intended you are. You can't afford to have them. So I give reminders of what I have seen in my experience to help you see. Or try to see. Monday morning practical tips will help you sharpen up and see what tweaks you and your blind spot. A little whack on the side of the head with your Monday morning coffee.

Monday, November 24, 2014

WHO HAS THE MOST POWER????



If you are a striving person, you like competition, you like:
to win, you enjoy power you don't mind extreme accountability, you like status
you are driven by recognition for your work.
Then it is quite natural that you want the top job.

If, however, you want to cause large change, you want time to think to reach good decisions, you enjoy collaboration, you want positive impact, you want to be pro-active not reactive, you want to do the right thing for the business----then maybe you don't really want the top job.  

The CEO role or any other of ultimate accountability is incredibly constrained, unbelievably powerless, burdened by the weight of the enterprise and 
the chief decision maker of decisions that "suck less".  

Hard to believe?  Ask a CEO how able she or he is to make something happen,
to make the right thing happen, to think about what is the right thing to happen.  I remember one CEO I worked with who laughed and said, "I feel like I'm on a slow moving elephant heading toward a cliff guiding it with a feather switch".  

There can be much more power and flexibility and satisfaction in a number two role. You can speak more freely, act more creatively, rock the boat more
effectively and collaborate easily.  A number two person or team  has the right balance of freedom and power to truly function.

I'm saying, "THE CEO ROLE ISN'T ALL IT'S CRACKED UP TO BE".  Don't be blinded by the status, the perks, the office, the salary if you like quite a bit of intrinsic satisfaction.  I'm just saying---- think twice before you reject a number two position and don't be surprised if becoming CEO, you think to yourself, "What just happened to me?"

Monday, November 17, 2014

BREATHING SPACE FOR INNOVATION


There are many schools of thought about how to develop more innovation in an organization.  Do you bring it in?  Do you let it out?  Does it reside in the culture or in the person?  If you know how to hire creative people, would that solve the problem?  Do you need a special atmosphere?  Do you have to hire crazy risk takers and then never ever say 'boo' if they make big bad mistakes?

I don't know.
But here is some of what I do know about innovation in companies from my own experience:

l. To create something new, people have to really really really have to have an idea or a goal that they are crazy about--intrigued with, nuts for, won't be told "no" for. That's the driving force, so assigned projects that need creativity may not get it. Let the passionate ones volunteer.

2. To create something new, people have to know how or be able to learn how to think flexibly--to turn things up side down, to come at a task or product from a new perspective. Look for the people who drive you nuts.  They say, "how about?, Why couldn't we?, Why not try this? What if?"  Those people.

3.  Drilling down to a solution or a creation doesn't work for creating something new. The opposite is true. Thinking broadly is needed--exploring in new areas, 
scanning other industries, following an interest or a curiosity to wherever it leads.  It's a way of fluffing up the brain from rigid habits and patterns. Let your people stray. No more industry conferences. Try something very different.

4.  There does need to be a pressing demand at some point in the creative process---for a new product, a different solution, a drop dead end point.
This forces new thought from all of the above.  Here is where you distill all the work in preparation.  So create a mandate worth working toward and hold the importance and the deadline.  Pressure and tension are good for creativity.

5.  Innovation is tough work. It doesn't have to be coddled or treated like it is oh so special and fragile. It takes diligence and experimentation without becoming defeated--- over and over again. Provide some support occasionally.


6. A high risk, high failure environment is not necessary.  A high mess,
high million of small experiments, high learning as you go, high living in the real world attitude is necessary. High high high risk is for start-ups who have no other choice. An elaborate, complicated company is just not as able to be agile and risk crazy. Intrpreneuship, yes. Entrpreneurship inside a company, no.

7.  Play works miracles. A playful approach to work keeps people and projects malleable  and doen't make the work so "important" that people are paralyzed by performance anxiety. Pilots are good fodder for innovation. Play with the idea before you work with the idea. Stay "light" until you hit execution mode.

8.  Innovation needs some protection from punishment (derision, extra tight budget constraints, jealousy) but mostly it need to be allowed to happen.

Innovation needs breathing space.




Monday, November 10, 2014

YOUR ROLE AS PROTECTOR



This topic has been on my mind all week.
I think it's because I have had some bad health care experiences lately.
AND there was not a single person who wasn't trying to do the best work that he or she could. There was not a single person who wasn't pleasant and
client focused. All were competent if not expert professionals.

How does that end up being a bad experience?
How do you support and protect hard working people who want to do a good job?

l.  Kill absurd letter of the law rigid rules that become laughable as they create the opposite of what your business wants to be about.

2. Do not create so many ways to check on people's competence that it makes them incompetent.

3. Don't fragment works processes so that the left hand can't know what the right hand is doing.

4. Don't try to create accountability through check lists that insult and weigh down the service or product being offered.

5. Don't create so much flexibility that chaos results. 

6. Don't specialize tasks so that no one has the pleasure of a whole job being well done.

7. Don't watch the clock more than the result.  

8. Don't believe that only what gets measured, gets done.  Lots of good things get done that are not pulled by measures and rewards.  Make room for these.

9. Constantly create context so that everyone (as in everyone) gets the
understanding of what, why and how things are happening.

10. Don't overload your company with too many goals and too many initiatives.
This weakens leverage and focus.

I see good people wanting to do good work in systems that have gone kind of insane.  Make a sane work culture for your people.

Sunday, November 2, 2014

I REPEAT MYSELF AND SO SHOULD YOU!




Repeating yourself is an important feature of the top executive role.  Getting a message, concept or a primary goal deeply embedded in your company takes you saying it again and again and again.  Way more than you want to and way more than you think you need to.  So here I am again reminding you of how hard it is to learn and grow when you are at the top of the organization.  This entry was written a few years ago when I, too, was slow to learn as a top executive.  The very role comes with a learning disability.  I quote me.

"Just get promoted to the top?  You may be the dumbest person in the organization or the least able to learn.  The white noise that surrounds you is the roaring lack of real feedback, the ability to know your impact and learn from it.  
Fundamentally, it is YOUR TASK TO ASK for feedback and opinions. And you need to learn to do it in such a way that is makes ti easy for people to talk to you honestly.  Even then, you should magnify the negative by 5 and minimize the positive by 3.  This is the equation to balance unequal power.
More math. If someone has the nerve (and it takes some) to come to you with an important negative about you or the organization --then they have probably  thought about it for at least  three months, talked about it with at least 3 people for corroboration who have talked to 3 people who have talked to three people.  The pain of the issue has to outweigh the risk of your displeasure.  This ratio is true even if you are the most approachable, open, tolerant CEO.  Your position simply weighs too much.
Positive feedback has its own problems and ratio.  I have seen CEO's wither without some appreciation and recognition and I've seen them blossom and flourish with it.  It's hard to compliment you and give you positive feedback,  It's awkward.  The kiss-up prohibition can be huge.  And there is a danger element of putting a halo on the person who gives it.  Seduction by flattery is used by ambitious people.  Mostly you can smell it.  So, the ratio is too minimize positive feedback by 3.  First it is easier to give and less important than the negative information you need to hear and understand.
The blind spot here is that you begin to think that it's as easy for others to talk candidly with you as it is for you to talk candidly with them.  NO.  It isn't.  You need to know what works for you to hear your company accurately  and what creates positive momentum for  people.  It's your job to make real conversation about your business easy and productive.  That's top on your job description as CEO.














5.  You just may be the dumbest person in the whole organization or the least able to learn.  the white noise that surrounds you is the roaring lack of real feedback of ability to know your impact and learn from it.  It is YOUR TASK TO ASK and to do it in such a way that it makes it easy for people to talk to you honestly.  And even then you must magnify the negative by a multiple of five and reduce the positive by a multiple of three.  Depending whether you ask.  If someone has the nerve to come with you on an important negative about you or the organization--then they have thought about it for at least three months, talked about it without least five others for corroboration and reached the point of the scare factor of talking with you weighs less than the day to day pain of the issue.  And this is true if you are the most approachable, open, tolerant CEO/  You position simply weighs too much.  and the positive is the same.  You may be quite wonderful.  In fact , it you are it's harder to say something positive to you. Awkward making.  If you are not, then the push to want to like the person in charge or the goodies that come from flattery are irresistible.  Still only a multiple of three because it is much easier than the negative.   It is your job to make real conversation about the business with you easy and productive..