THE PLAY DILEMMA

I am a fun fanatic. It is the joy in my life. Laughing is my absolute favorite activity.
The best thing about fun is that it can't be orchestrated. It can be encouraged.
And I take play seriously!!! Play for kids is earned rehearsal for 'life' in the best sense of living.
Exploration, mastery, persistance, winning and losing, pretending as a way to try on roles are all satisfying to the learner.

I stumble onto this topic without knowing what I wanted to say. I think it's this.
Our organizations tend to be grim oldsters or day care centers. Why?  
What does play and fun stand for?  

Old Grim                                       New Daycare
not serious                                    essential 
wasted time                                   supports work
disrespect for the work                   often is the work
foolish                                           serious about play                                       
done after work not during              committed to fun
embarassing                                  proud of fun culture
orderly                                          chaotic

What is the blind spot for leaders?
Easy. Learn from one another
Neither is right or wrong
What supports a culture that gets the work done and keeps people committed?
AND wanting to do more for the fun of it.

THE ART OF PROMOTION

Promotions are an important tool for CEO's and top executives. They have impact galore, good and bad, but certainly on more than the person being promoted.  Promotions at the right time can be a booster shot for a company. New blood, new ideas, new people give new energy and focus to an organization. And a message is sent every single time for every single promotion.
"This is what matters. This is what kind of person we want. We want more of this."
Don't be blind to the power of promotion in your company.

l. Are you proud of every single promotion that occurs in your company.

2. Would you be OK if the discussion about the promotion and its standards were made public to the company?

3. Are you ever coerced into a promotion due to the person telling you of a possible job offer from your competition?

4. Do you take into consideration the character of the person being promoted?

5. Who do you confer with about promotions?  Do you look for contrary evidence of readiness

6. Do you make overt to the company as a whole why you are promoting this person?

7.  How often do you regret a promotion due to being surprised in some way about what you didn't  realize about the person and their work?

I think three important issues that can be forgotten in making a promotion. Seems impossible but it's true.  They are implied but could be more powerful if made overt.  Is this the kind of person that you want to have a lot more of in your company? How and why?  How did this person add specific value to the company and what are the hopes for what this person will do in the new role. These issues should be discussed in detail before the promotion. 

Discussing these issues with as many people as you can tolerate (yes large groups can make important decisions if facilitated with some skill) will give your culture a powerful coherence and can make the acceptance of the person into the new role easier. There are tough discussions. I have seen people promoted for darned good work but who were problems personally. Mass murderers? No, but profound lack of judgment about personal and professional boundaries meaning too flirtatious, too punitive to direct reports, hiding behavior behind the freedom allowed in the job, or out and out dishonesty. Not everybody sees this at the same time but it is a blow to company energy when the smoke of these kind of issues are not checked for fire. Ignoring these signals for the sake of achievement only reduces respect to the CEO team and makes an idealistic culture a joke.

I hate to say it but hard work and loyalty play a small part in promotions. It does say a lot about the character of a person and should be highly valued. But you want the promotion to say "this person moved the needle". They added value to the enterprise and here is how.
And a promotion is not recognition for a job done as much as an indicator of new higher expectations in the new role. "Here is why you have this new accountability and what we want to see done."  

A well written announcement can be powerful, showing fairness  the choice related to the work done and to be done. And it can teach people. " Here is what you do to get ahead."  "Here is the kind of person that gets promoted. Each promotion teaches the boundaries of what is OK and not OK in your company.

Another aspect of promotion that works for you or against you is the timing. Do not let people dangle waiting for a promotion that is not coming. Do not insinuate a coming promotion because you never know what might happen. A person who is left waiting too long kind of rots on the vine--loses commitment and energy and often leaves after being promoted. What you think is positive can be seen as an insult and boy will you be mad when it happens. I see more damage from promoting late than from promoting early. I've experienced both and I was motivated over the moon by having trust put in me a little early.  Provide support and let the talent learn.  

Promotions are a big yes and a big no to people. And they involve personal fondness if it is a direct report of your own. And you can be blinded by sucking up as they say. But don't avoid the 'no' because it also avoids the 'yes'.  And yes is what makes the company go round.

YOUR FOCUS IS THE COMPANY FOCUS

Do you realize when you have lost your focus about the primary essentials of running a money making company?

1. Do you see decisions made by your direct reports that you feel are not prudent?

2. Do you know exactly where your company needs to put its attention?

3. Can you give a fifteen second statement about the focus of your company to a new Board Member?

4. Do you teach the business fundamentals to your management group on an annual basis and apply them to your present business environment?

5. Do you have excitement about applying business savvy to your company no matter what the circumstances?

6. Do you assume everyone knows what you do?  Or do you assume most people can't understand the complexity of your company?

7. Is the 'what' of your company balanced with the 'how'?

You may have a blindspot about the most basic elements of money making and have gotten lost in the forest of daily distractions. Maintaining the 'right' focus for your company is at the top of the CEO list of to do's.

Try asking random people in your management group:
—What were our sales last year?
—Are sales growing or declining? 
—Profit margin? In comparison with other companies in your industry? 
—Here's a good one. Ask about inventory velocity or asset velocity?
—ROA?
—Cash? Increase or decrease? Why? 
—How do we stand in relationship to the competition?

The C-Suite members should know this without a moment's hesitation. But how literate is your company as a whole? These basics are what makes a strategy make sense rather than being a slogan or list of rules. 

Thanks to Ram Charon (What the CEO Wants You to Know) and Daniel Goleman (Focus) for their writing on this topic.

ARE YOU STUCK IN 'SKIMMING' MODE?

1. Do you go beyond the executive summary on an important topic?

2. When you insist on 'exception reporting', do you note it but don't dig for the cause for the exception?

3. Do you worry more about time than content during meetings?

4.. Are you so quickly touching bases that you miss important emerging information you might need?

5. Do you get only fleeting glances of possibly serious relationship issues in your team?

6. Would your assessment of the functioning of your business be the same as randomly selected people in your organization?

7. Do you, yourself, miss the grit of an average business day? 

8. Do you know the major challenge of each of your functional leaders?

9. Do you spend more time traveling and dining with leaders than you do understanding
their business challenges and generating options to meet the challenges?

I remember the blur of meetings and crowded calendars and the ever present issue of 
limited time and huge scope of being a top executive. That dynamic can create a sense of
waste, hyper-active work and low impact. Not what you want as a top executive.
I have seen a burned out CEO get re-energized by going to a store and working with associates and seeing actual customers. (I worked in food retailing and banking)
It brings the conceptual, strategic work down to earth. It reminds leaders that they are not playing chess at the top. I also suggest digging deep yourself, not through Human Resources or your direct report, when you sense something is off. This is the moment to dig deep to get your own tangible knowledge. Of course, you tell the functional leader that you are going to
touch thing up close or you do it with your EC colleague. What you learn will give you insight into the company as a whole, allow you to make better decisions and to course correct.
The people in your company will respect, even admire your care and diligence. It's hard to stop the scanning/skimming approach and you can't afford to dig deep often. But it is essential to know when to do it and the impact on you and your company will be big.

CURIOUS ABOUT HOW DECISIONS ARE MADE

I have worked in many countries and have been there durng Easter time.
Each celebrates Easter differently. 
I am in Maine for Easter this year. I came home from Mexico for a week for family birthdays, business and Easter too.
I was surprised to see two major supermarkets closed for Easter Sunday.
Everything would be closed in Mexico, so why was I surprised?
Not sure.
I guess I view the US as primarily secular.
Or pragamatic.
Or so pluralistic that we wouldn't close the doors to non Easter celebrating people.
I got curious about the decision.
Was it sales numbers for Easter Sunday in the past?
Was it to be good to employees?
Was it to please customers?
Who made the decision?
Has the store always been closed on Easter Sunday?
What were the factors involved in the decision.
What was discussed?
Was it an easy, automatic decision or complex and heated?

How does a CEO or top executive not become blind to how decisions are made or more importantly, the impact of the decision.  I'm curious.

STRENGTHENING YOUR EARLY ADAPT MUSCLE

 The demand for large company innovation is here again. It does come and go as with different  two pressures--a tightening market and economy or optimism combined with need for the new to compete. I used to do lots of keynote speaking and training on innovation and the creative  process.

It is actually highly skill based but needs the ooomph and discipline to support develop it in large organizations.

Here are some of facts about early adapter CEO's as researched by

business+strategy and written up by David Clarke.

—They embrace novelty and take pride in being ahead of the game

—They're willing to be guinea pigs

—They are taste makers

—They lose interest quickly

—They are fundamentally optimistic about the future

The rationale for the need to become an early adapter CEO is, as Clarke says, that the price that early adopters were willing to pay was a multiple of what the product would cost once it hit critical market adoption.

I like this kind of talk. It energizes me. And I hesitate. I've worked with CEO's obsessed with innovation and I've worked with the determinedly prudent CEO. I wonder if the CEO is the early adapter or is it  the mavericks or company culture who push innovation. I see the CEO managing the pace and strategic content of innovation and demanding new ideas from the company--whole company. A balancing, choke is needed.

Then again, Virgin Galactic has already taken $250,000 as deposits from 700  people for trips to space. Check your reaction to that statement. It may reveal your blind spot about your early 
adapter muscle. Do you immediately get interested or do you immediately dismiss it as too bleeding edge? I would certainly have Boards assess their CEO's (you) on this dimension.

IN DEFENSE OF PENCE????

I'm kind of, sort of, maybe writing in defense of Vice-President Pence's stance about never meeting or dining out with a woman alone, other than his wife.

There are all kind of things to say about that stance and they are being said.
—non-thinking stupid evangelical. Heck, Christ did it all the time and with all kinds of women
—overly sexed man who is so easily led into temptation
—big ego guy thinking all women are unable to resist him
—marginalizes women who will get ignored by him for important positions
—makes women a sex object to be avoided

These are a few  of the things being said. And, at first, I said, "Right on. He is a prissy throw back to the 50's. He's not a modern man. He can't understand the Pussy Brigade.
(I gag on the word. I'm over 50 by quite a bit)

Then I paused to think about my experience in the world and in large organizations.
Here is what my experience says:

Being in power puts you in a very vulnerable position. Man or woman, people will want alone time to influence you. It is a very natural instinct. By the way, women are way better at it having been one down for a long time. We learn. The under dog kisses up.

I've seen quite a few relationships start with wine and fun and alone time, that end up sliding into something more that ends up hurting work and family and careers. Certainly may have happened anyway, but better outside the realm of work.

Leaders are human. They need and want comfort. They want reassurance that they are doing a good job. Men don't do that so well with one another. Women have been trained to it.
And it does happen the other way around, with women in the top role and men supporting and comforting. I, personally have not seen it become sexual with women leaders.

Sex is. 

Knowing personal from professional and minding that boundary does matter. Pence is just a little rigid about it. But not a fool. Not a fool.