Conquering Your Paradoxical Leadership Challenges with the eXpansive Leadership Model

The test of a first-rate intelligence is
the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind
at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.
F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Dimensions of Leadership
As complicated and difficult as your job as a leader is (at work or home), it has only two primary dimensions:

I. What you do – task-oriented behaviors.
II. How you interact with others – relationship-oriented behaviors.

Each of these dimensions can be subdivided into two sides as seen below (examples are in parentheses):

I. What you do:
A. Major Tasks                         B. Minor Tasks
(contemplate strategic issues)   (focus on project details)

II. How you interact with others:
A. Direct Others                       B. Support Others
(confront a poor performer)      (celebrate team accomplishments)

Defining the leaders’ job in this manner is not new. The pioneering research at Ohio State University and the University of Michigan identified the importance of task-oriented and relationship-oriented behaviors back in the 1950s and 1960s.

Paradoxical Challenges Require Paradoxical Thinking
Professor Richard Farson writes in his challenging book on paradox that, “There’s nothing as invisible as the obvious.” (1) What is obvious, yet not done until now, is to place the two sides of each dimension in opposition to each other and in an interdependent model, as seen below:

This general model summarizes what you need to do (Minor and Major Tasks) and how you need to interact with those doing the tasks (Direct and Support People) as you pursue your goals. Each of these four sides is also ways of thinking about your leadership responsibilities. How you think about what you do and how think about your interactions with others is fundamental to your success. This is because the quality of your thinking dictates the effectiveness of your decisions, which determines your actions, thereby creating your results. (You might want to read that last sentence again. I’ll warn you when I’m being profound!) If you want better results, you need to think better about your challenges and goals. And since we have already concluded in a previous blog that many of your challenges are paradoxical, so too must be your leadership thinking – your process of unleashing the energy of others toward worthy goals.

These four ways of thinking represent four fundamental leadership styles that I have labeled Rational, Visionary, Commanding, and Empowering as seen in below in the eXpansive Leadership Model (XLM). Notice that the styles are in opposition to each other. This enables you to begin thinking about issues paradoxically. The research predicts that you can produce eXtraordinary results when you apply this model to the mountains you scale every day.

How can you use this model to think paradoxically?

Keep eXpanding,

Dave

P.S. Click on this link (or paste it into your browser) to read about or take the XLM assessment. http://xlmassessment.com/

1. Richard Farson; Management of the Absurd: Paradoxes in Leadership, Simon & Schuster, New York, NY, 1996.

Are You a Leader or Manager?

When I worked for the global giant Siemens many years ago, I reported to a boss who thought he was leading us, but Don was only managing us. He provided little inspiration, cross-functional collaboration or innovation. While he thought of us as followers, we felt like subordinates. Don didn’t realize that subordinates comply with marching orders, whereas followers commit to pursuing worthy goals. Lunch with Peter Drucker helped me understand this distinction.

The purpose of my luncheon meeting with management guru Peter Drucker, whom Harvard Business Review considers the “father of management,” was to discuss the overall strategy for a new organization we were building at UCLA. After soaring with Professor Drucker’s illuminating ideas, I found myself back on earth in my office reviewing budget details. These two experiences summed up my responsibilities as the chief administrative officer of this organization. One minute I was thinking big picture and developing long-term goals, the next I was clarifying objectives and managing operations. I was answering YES to the question, am I a leader or a manager? If I wanted to have followers, instead of just subordinates, I needed to be a leader and a manager. The same is true for you.

How often do you find yourself engaged in what some call “leadership” activities, such as developing long-term goals or strategies, collaborating with others across divisions or departments, inspiring change or innovation among your team members? Do you also engage in what many would label traditional “management” behaviors, such as clarifying objectives and expectations, developing plans, managing operations, or monitoring your environment? Whether you consider yourself a leader or a manager, success in today's flat, complex and interdependent work environment demands that you use the complementary skills of both. Of course, there is a difference regarding the amount, nature, and exact mix of these skills depending on your level of responsibility in the organization. Never-the-less, if you are going to unleash the energy of your team toward worthy goals (the very definition of a leader), research says you need to be a leader and a manager.

In his review of approximately 1,300 scientific studies on leadership, Professor Gary Yukl states, "most scholars seem to agree that success as a manager or administrator in modern organizations necessarily involves leading." (1) To which I add; success as a leader also involves managing. Integrating the latest research on leadership  and management skills to help you conquer your daunting challenges and unleash the energy of people toward your worthy goals is the objective of this blog.

Where do you see an unbalanced practice of leadership and management skills?

Keep eXpanding,
Dave

P.S. Dave Jensen is a Senior Lecturer and leadership coach at Emory University’s School of Business and president of his own training/coaching firm. He and his team transform proven leadership tools into your success stories. Dave is also a popular speaker at conferences, meetings, and workshops. He can be reached in Los Angeles, CA at (310) 397-6686 and http://davejensenonleadership.com/index.html

1. Yukl, Gary; Leadership in Organizations, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, 2006, page 6.)

How Leadership Books Kill People

It’s 9AM at 35,000 feet. The captain requests that we fasten our seat belts as we fly over the Colorado Rocky Mountains. I’m flying to Atlanta to teach another five-day leadership class with my colleagues from Emory University. As I gaze at the endless snow-capped mountains stretching toward the heavens, I am struck at how brief my small life is on this planet.

Oh my God, I think! Tears well up as suddenly I feel the weight of the mountains on my slumped shoulders. The leaders I teach this week are going to actually use their brief time on this planet applying my ideas. What an enormous responsibility! Dear Lord, please help me make sure that what I teach this week improves their lives when they get back to work.

As I write these words, tears well up once again. The sands of time are slipping through your hourglass. You have chosen to spend them reading this article and, if I do my job well, use these ideas with others. I feel a huge responsibility to share only those leadership tools, tips, and techniques that will actually work for you.

Most leadership books and articles do not take this approach. They are written opinions of coaches, consultants, or former executives. Of course, there is nothing wrong with reading their opinions if you want to spend your brief time on this planet trying untested ideas.

Unfortunately, that’s precisely how most leadership books and blogs kill people, and put organizations out of business.

How Leadership Books Kill
Imagine your boss invites you into her office and asks you to find a great book on leadership. She tells you that she is going to use ideas from them to teach a new leadership class on “how leaders conquer today's tough challenges and reach their goals.” She explains that just as a physician must find the best treatment to cure a sick patient, you need to find the best resource to help her leaders.

Where would you look? If you searched books on Amazon.com, the word “leadership” would yield 381,556 titles. How would you decide which one to recommend to your boss? More importantly, what criteria would you use to select a great book?

If we stay with your boss’s medical analogy for a second we might ask ourselves, how does a physician decide which treatment is best? Having conducted medical research for several years and been a healthcare executive, I can tell you that the best physicians base the majority of their decision on ‘evidence’ - what research says really works. Why? Because the essence of science is prediction. When an excellent physician recommends a treatment or writes a prescription, he is predicting that the patient will get better based on the evidence from years of scientific research, filtered by experience. Spending your precious time and money on leadership books or articles that are not fact-based is like going to a doctor who prescribes medication that he cooks up in the back room. The medication may help, but it also may kill.

It’s the same with most leadership books. They are usually based on the experiences of the author. They lack the facts to predict that you and your organization will get better if you take their “prescription.” Of course, you can read books that don't have the research to back up their prediction and see if what the author recommends produces results for you. That's called experimentation (via trial and error). Yet that’s how leadership books and blogs kill! How much time, energy, and resources do you and your people have to conduct experiments? What if your competitors are applying proven, fact-based ideas with high predictive value while you spend time trying the next ‘flavor-of-the-month’ fad?

There are in fact two things, science and opinion;
the former begets knowledge, the later ignorance.
Hippocrates

A Fact-based Blog That Gets Results
In their excellent book Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths and Total Nonsense: Profiting from Evidence-Based Management, Professors Pfeffer and Sutton cite numerous examples of the high cost of not using research as you lead others. They recommend that you base your leadership practices on the best evidence (i.e., facts), not what is in vogue. (1)

I’ve taken their advice in order to make the best use of the grains of sand slipping through your hourglass. My articles are a summary of hundreds of scientific studies and well-researched books on leadership that gets results. I’ve combined these academic findings with stories about my successes and failures as a leader (I’m a former chief administrative officer) and educator (I’ve taught and/or coached about 10,000 global leaders over the past 15 years). Reading these articles is like embarking on a journey where only predictive and practical leadership tools that have been studied under the microscope of science and confirmed in the corridors of the corporation are revealed.

Have you seen anyone killed by leadership books or articles?

Keep eXpanding,
Dave

1. Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton; Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths and Total Nonsense: Profiting from Evidence-Based Management, Harvard Business School Publishing, Boston, Massachusetts, 2006, page 41.

How eXceptional Leaders Achieve eXtraordinary Results Under Pressure

Greg was organized, likable, and communicated well. He was promoted to director of finance after three years as a mid-level manager. Team meetings ran like a Swiss watch. His managers told me that Greg included them in decision-making and that he delegated well. He also fostered an environment of creativity and openness to change. Unfortunately...

The economy worsened and the CEO demanded more productivity. That’s when cracks in Greg's leadership armor began to show. Three of his middle managers failed to perform under the increased pressure. They missed project deadlines, were unresponsive to their colleagues service needs, and failed to engage their own team members in dealing with the difficult times. Employee morale plummeted and turnover skyrocketed. Craig finally counseled his three managers, but they didn’t improve because he failed to hold them accountable for implementing an improvement plan. A year after Greg was promoted... he was fired.

How Often Are You Strong to a Fault?
Greg’s problem was “lopsided leadership” – the tendency to overuse a strength (i.e., to be strong to a fault), especially under stress. Leaders who over-focus on their strongest style(s) are like muscle-bound bodybuilders who don’t stretch. They’re inflexible, rigid, and unable to adapt to changing circumstances. How often does this happen to you when you’re under pressure?

In his book, The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman states, “It’s a world that demands constant adjustment and does not tolerate leaders who are unable or unwilling to build up their weak muscles—or who overuse their strong muscles.”

Based on my review of hundreds of studies that included more than 171, 000 leaders, I discovered that relying on your strengths is not enough anymore. What got you here won’t get you there! You need to avoid overdoing your strengths (and shore up your weaknesses), especially when you’re feeling stressed. Before we discuss how four leadership styles can eliminate lopsided leadership, let’s take a quick look at today’s challenges...

Do These Challenges Look Familiar?
Listed below are the top challenges leaders face in today’s whitewater work environment based on a survey of 1,600 global leaders and my analysis of the issues affecting thousands of leaders who have attended our courses (1) How many of these are affecting you and your organization?

1. Control costs
2. Grow the business
3. Motivate others
4. Hold others accountable for results
5. Meet short-term objectives
6. Innovate for long-term growth
7. Get more done with less
8. Take time to coach/mentor others
9. Increase teamwork/collaboration
10. Achieve your own performance goals
11. Beat global competition in a turbulent economy
12. Address local and increasingly fragmented customer needs
13. Use the advances of the Internet and other technologies
14. Focus on your core competencies
15. Manage generational and cultural differences
16. Adhere to uniform policies and procedures
17. Embrace the accelerated pace of change
18. Provide stability to keep others from overwhelmed by change
19. Meet the increasing demands of work
20. Have a fulfilling home life

As you identified your challenges, did you notice that these challenges actually pull in opposite directions? If you read the list again with the word and at the end of each odd-numbered statement, you’ll spot today's critical leadership challenge.

“The problem, of course, is that… management is complicated and confusing. Be global and be local. Collaborate and compete. Change perpetually and maintain order. Make the numbers while nurturing your people. How is anyone supposed to reconcile all this?” (2)
    Professor Henry Mintzberg

Conquering Your Paradoxical Challenges
Leadership scholar Henry Mintzberg, the top challenges, and even Greg’s true story, teach us that leaders at all levels are being stretched by issues that pull them in opposite directions (i.e., “paradoxical tensions”). According to research by OnPoint Consulting, and many others, the most successful leaders conquer their challenges by managing these paradoxical tensions effectively. (3)

If paradox is the essence of your leadership challenge, shouldn't it be essential to your leadership thinking?

In a word, YES... based on my extensive research, experience as an executive, and decades of coaching/teaching 10,000 leaders. Being strong in one style or two styles is no longer adequate. If you want to consistently conquer your paradoxical challenges and achieve your goals, you need to dynamically juggle four leadership styles throughout the day. Let me explain...

The Four Interdependent Styles of Leadership
eXpanding your leadership effectiveness begins by recognizing that leadership consists of two primary dimensions:

I. WHAT you do - the tasks that need to be done.
II. HOW you work with others - how to interact with those doing.

Each of these dimensions has two distinct sides:
I. WHAT you do:
- Major Tasks (e.g., conduct a strategy retreat)
 - Minor Tasks (e.g., review details of a project plan)

II. HOW you work with others:
 - Take Charge (e.g., confront a poor performer)
 - Take Care (e.g., mentor team members)

Research tells us that today’s paradoxical challenges requires leaders to juggle both sides of both dimensions simultaneously throughout the day. The eXpansive Leadership Model (XLM) expresses these four "requirements" as four fundamental leadership styles. The Rational and Visionary leadership styles represent the task dimension (I). The Empowering and Commanding leadership styles represent the relationship dimension (II). Each style is described below:

RATIONAL – Focus on the Facts
The rational leadership style is the left-brain, logical thinking side of leadership. Leaders who are highly skilled in this style clearly define their and their team members’ roles. They excel at setting short-term objectives and generating detailed plans with milestones. Performance expectations are plainly spelled out. Because they actively seek feedback, effective rational leaders understand their strengths and weaknesses, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of those around them. They also stay in touch with their team members, peers, their boss and their customers.

VISIONARY – Imagine the Future
The visionary leadership style is the creative, dreamer aspect of leadership. Those highly skilled in this style create flexible approaches to solve problems, make decisions and achieve strategic goals. They bring new products, services or processes to fruition primarily because they are effective in launching cross-functional experiments. Visionary leaders also inspire others to question the status quo by embracing change, creativity, and open-mindedness. They enjoy reflecting on global issues, thinking about long-term consequences and pondering future possibilities.

EMPOWERING – Take Care
The empowering leadership style is the servant side of leadership. Those highly skilled in this style enable others to do their best every day by delegating well, as well as coaching and involving team members in decisions. They are masters at orchestrating diverse individuals into high-performing, energized teams that work well across the enterprise. Empowering leaders build trust and empathy by patiently listening to other perspectives and beliefs without prejudgment. They also demonstrate fairness, honesty, integrity, and humility in all their interactions.

COMMANDING – Take Charge
The commanding leadership style is the strong, forceful side of leadership. Those highly skilled in this style work extremely hard to fulfill commitments and execute strategies. They push to accomplish tasks, projects and goals on time. They are not afraid to solicit opposing views when making important decisions. They are also comfortable with ambiguity; they don't need all the data in order to move forward. Commanding leaders control their emotions and moods under pressure. In addition, they refuse to allow themselves or their team to be the victim during adversity. They take personal responsibility for their choices and consequences.

The Core Competencies in Each Style
Each of the four fundamental styles is comprised of four core competencies. Taken together, these competencies describe the essence of what you must develop to master each style.

The XLM blends all four styles, and their competencies, into a holistic leadership model seen below:

There is an avalanche of evidence confirming, “One leadership style is not enough” if you want to conquer your challenges and reach your goals. Your job as a leader is to first identify your (and your team's) strengths and weaknesses, then develop a focused plan to lead with your strengths and manage your weakness. (The XLM assessment is a great, inexpensive tool to help you do just that. Click here for more info: http://xlmassessment.com/ )

Does Leadership Development Pay?
Of course, you might ask if organizations that develop their leaders to rise to the challenge actually perform better. A McKinsey survey found that companies scoring in the top quintile of talent-management practices outperform their industry's mean return to shareholders by a remarkable 22 percentage points. (4) In addition, Laurie Bassi and her colleagues measured the effect of spending on employee education by following the stock prices of 575 publicly traded firms. They found that companies that invested the most in their employees outperformed the S&P 500 by 17 to 35%. (5). Finally, Bob Eichinger and his colleagues reviewed the research on effective human resource interventions and reported that training does indeed pay. (6) They cite a four-year study by Morrow and Rupinski, which found a mean ROI of 45% for managerial training and 418% for sales/technical training. (7) The moral of the story is that development does pay if it's based on research-proven tools.

What’s next?
Let me know how I can help you or your team conquer your paradoxical challenges and reach your goals.

Sincerely,
Dave
Dave Jensen, Author
XLM Assessment and Profile

P.S. Dave Jensen is a Senior Lecturer on leadership at Emory University’s School of Business and president of the training/coaching firm S3, Inc. He and his team transform proven leadership tools into your success stories. Dave is also a popular speaker at conferences, meetings, and workshops. He can be reached in Los Angeles, CA at (310) 397-6686 and http://davejensenonleadership.com/index.html

1. MWorld, Winter 2006, pages 21 – 26.

2. Jonathan Gosling and Henry Mintzberg: The Five Minds of the Manager. Harvard Business Review, November: 54 -- 63, 2003.

3. Richard Lepsinger: How Top Performing Companies Get Ahead of the Pack and Stay There. American Management Association, MWorld, Summer 2007, 3 – 4.

4. http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/The_war_for_talent_part_two_1035.

5. Laurie Bassi and Daniel McMurrer, How's Your Return on People? Harvard Business Review, March, 2004, page 18. Reprint F0403B.

6. Robert Eichinger, Michael Lombardo, and Dave Ulrich. 100 Things You Need To Know: Best People Practices For Managers And HR, Lominger Ltd., Inc., Minneapolis, Minnesota, 2006, 207 -- 212.

7. Morrow, C. and Rupinski, M., An Investigation of the Effect and Economic Utility of Corporate Wide Training, Personnel Psychology, 50 (1), 1997, 91 -- 120.)

How Leaders Apply WHATEVER They Learn to Achieve eXtraordinary Results

The End is the Beginning
The end of ANY book, seminar, or educational endeavor is the start of your journey to fulfill your purpose for that endeavor. In other words, the most important part of education is what happens after you obtain it.

Let’s assume you just finished reading a book on leadership. Why did you read it? To become a better leader, of course. But will you actually become a better leader? Haven't you read other non-fiction books that failed to help you to take the action required to improve your skills? We don't want that to happen to you, do we? Knowledge is not power, applied knowledge is power. You spent your money, and more importantly your precious time, reading the book. (FYI, the expenditures for training and development services in North America exceeds $120B. Training Magazine, Oct., 2003.) You need to see the pay off! Otherwise, it’s like shoveling cash and small pieces of your life into a burning potbelly stove.

How To Use It and Not Lose It
The process outlined below will help you apply the ideas you learn from any meeting, seminar, book... It is a system that shows leaders how to invest, not spend, their time and money on education.

1.      Brainstorm challenges and strategy. Ask yourself: What major challenges am I facing at work? Let your ideas flow and keep your pen moving as you brainstorm the answers to the question. In addition, reflect on your professional goals and your organization's strategy.

2.      Write a S.M.A.R.T. goal. Based on your business challenges, professional goals, and your organization's strategic imperatives, write a S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Responsible, and Timed) goal for your leadership development. What do you want to do better or differently because of the book? For example, one executive at our recent leadership course said her goal was: Improve my coaching skills by… (insert date) to help my direct reports develop professionally.

3.      Meet with your manager. Meet with your manager for a few minutes to discuss your goal. Access your commanding skills and tell your boss what you’re planning to work on. Ask for input, especially regarding how well you have aligned your goal with his or her overall strategy.

4.      Review your insights, ideas, and behaviors page. Write a list of 7 to 10 insights, ideas, or behaviors (IIB's) on a sheet of paper. (I do this as I read a book or take a class.) For example, listed below are several ideas that leaders from my leadership classes identified as most effective:

• Use the XLM for my and my team’s development. Ask team members to assess their XLM at www.xlmassessment.com. Then develop ways to leverage our talents and hold each other accountable for stretching. Meet every two weeks to measure progress and celebrate our success.
• Map a paradox. Conduct a mapping session on issues affecting our team. This will help them understand the tension they feel and increase buy-in to managing the two issues simultaneously.
• Eliminate internal silos using systems thinking principles. Think systemically by increasing cross-functional teamwork, inviting other departments to our meetings occasionally, and using the S.T.A.T. model.
• Focus on what’s important to team members. Meet 1-on-1 with one team member every day for five minutes to discuss individual concerns, clarify expectations, and applaud small successes.
• Increase two-way communication. Speak last at meetings, ask more questions, listen better, and remember that broadcasting is not communicating.
• Conduct after action reviews. Coach others by delegating small portions of my job, and then ask these questions after completion: What happened? Why? What lessons were learned? Who else might benefit from these lessons?
• Make better decisions with the XLM. Access all four orientations of the XLM when making decisions. This will help ensure I have all the facts (R), consider the big picture (V), assess the impact on others (E), and take action (C).
• Manage anxiety. When stressed, ask the team "how can we view the differently?" Also, remind them that anxiety is the essence of growth and that great companies approach downturns as a chance to beat their competitors.
• Understand concerns and focus on influence. Use Stephen Covey's circle of concern and influence to encourage me (and others) to take personal responsibility, exercise their free will, and be expansive.

5.      Review your favorites with a partner. Review your insights, ideas, and behaviors with a colleague. Focus your discussion on the few IIB's that you feel will help you best reach your goal. Tell your partner how you're going to use these few IIB's.

6.      Create a list of four behaviors. Translate your few, insights, ideas and behaviors into four specific behaviors you will implement when you get back to work. Write these four behaviors in the left-hand column on a blank sheet of paper. A well-written behavioral action helps you adapt an IIB into a behavior that you can actually see yourself applying. Here's an example: I will write the XLM on a Post-it note, and place it on my computer screen during my direct reports' performance reviews.

7.      Link the new behavior with an old habit. One of the best ways to remind yourself to practice your new behaviors is to link those new behaviors to old habits or current systems (old habit + new behavior = new habit). In the previous step, the old habit (i.e., current system) was conducting performance reviews. Linking the performance review with the XLM on a Post-it note will help create the new habit of using the XLM to develop direct reports.

8.      Review and celebrate progress. When you are back at work, solicit feedback from a colleague or your manager regarding your implementation of these behaviors. Ask them to help you monitor your progress. Once a week, report the progress and challenges you are experiencing as you use your new behaviors. Make sure you also celebrate your small successes. Don't worry too much about your goal, concentrate on behaviors. Research tells us that you will accomplish your big goal by focusing on small steps.

The most important part of education is what happens after you obtain it. Which of these steps do you use to help you Use It and Not Lose it? Are there others you find helpful?

Keep eXpanding,
Dave

P.S. Click on the link below (or paste it into your browser) to read about my research on 171,000 leaders:

http://davejensenonleadership.com/XLMHoweXceptionalLeadersAchieveeXtraordinaryResults.html

From NO Silos to KNOW Silos - How Leaders Increase Cross-functional Collaboration.

A CEO recently showed me his new organization chart. Notice what was at the bottom:

 
No Silos

 

I asked him if his silos (meaning the various departments in his organization) were completely dependent on each other. He said of course not, each unit has its own goals and objectives. I then recommended that he re-think his “NO silos” stance to one of “KNOW when and how to open silo doors.”

As a leader, you are probably responsible for a group of individuals working in a unit, team, division, or department. You and your people are therefore accountable to produce a certain amount of work in that unit, right? Let me ask you this: How often do you and your people need to interact with others to accomplish work that is important for the entire organization?

It is my experience that the individual units in most organizations should operate independently (like silos), focusing on what they do best, most of the time. Yet, there are occasions when people in these units need to collaborate to accomplish important project and strategic goals. I’m not talking about the “I need some info to complete a report” type of collaboration. I’m talking about the “We need to work together to accomplish an important goal” collaboration. This later type of project-oriented working together requires the management of the tension between independence and interdependence. Too much independence leads to silo thinking, thereby limiting the leaders’ ability to see when it is appropriate to come together to achieve organizational imperatives. Too much interdependence leads to “over-collaboration,” creating unnecessary meetings and inefficient communications. Silos are OK, silo thinking is not. Thus, an effective leader needs a process that opens the silo doors and invites collaboration among the parts when it makes sense to do so (e.g., to achieve strategic goals).

The systems thinking action team (S.T.A.T.) is such a process. It integrates the basic tools of project management with systems thinking principles to create a systematic approach to help leaders bring the right people together at the right time to realize critical goals. Specifically, the Table below identifies the situations that call for applying a S.T.A.T.

When to Apply a Systems Thinking Action Team (S.T.A.T.)

1. Achieve fast results on strategic issues with a team

2. Improve employees’ buy-in to a key project

3. Strengthen the belief that the organization can reach an important goal

4. Keep a key initiative on track using disciplined feedback

5. Encourage an experimental, life-is-learning, mindset

6. Manage the tension between independence and interdependence

7. Develop leaders through action learning

The Table below outlines the steps of the S.T.AT. process. Don’t let the number of steps intimidate you, most of these steps can be accomplish in two meetings. In fact, I recommend that you take the first six steps in the first meeting. The next five can be taken in the second team meeting, while the final step – lessons learned – concludes your project.

How to Apply a Systems Thinking Action Team (S.T.A.T.)

1. Define a strategic issue

2. Create a cross-functional team

3. Write a SMART goal

4. Gain commitment to the goal

5. Develop team norms

6. Identify your top ten stakeholders

7. Write a brief scope S.T.A.T.ement

8. Brainstorm assumptions and risks

9. Generate tasks

10. Find leveraged action

11. Assign tasks and chart progress

12. Conduct an after action review.

Feel free to call me to discuss these steps. Which of them are you using now? How well do you KNOW silos?

Keep eXpanding,
Dave

P.S. Click on the link below (or paste it into your browser) to read about how my research on 171,000 leaders:

http://davejensenonleadership.com/XLMHoweXceptionalLeadersAchieveeXtraordinaryResults.html

Don’t Just Count Your Blessings…

My sister-in-law's mom, Ruth, died last week. She had been ill for some time and required 24/7 healthcare. She spent the last week of her life calling old friends and writing thank-you notes to those who had cared for her over the last several years. It seems to me that she died the way she lived – counting more than just her blessings.

Ruth's wonderful life teaches me that it is easy to be thankful when things go my way, but hard when people or circumstances fail to meet my expectations. Ruth wasn’t thankful just for her blessings, she was thankFULL for everything.

It is also easy to mourn someone with tears, but hard to honor them with action. This holiday season, I'll try to honor Ruth by practicing what she lived – being thankful all the time. Here are a few examples of “difficulties” for which I choose to be thankful:

1. Traffic

2. Dirty dishes

3. Tough times

1. Traffic
I hear people complaining about traffic and long commutes all the time. Of course, Los Angeles traffic bothers me too at times. Yet, it was those hours in traffic that drove me to turn my car into a rolling university 25 years ago when I worked for Siemens. I've listened to thousands of hours of educational audio programs during long commutes, traffic jams, and airport delays. I attribute a significant portion of my “success” to my dedication to lifelong learning… in my car and elsewhere. I invite you to check out www.teach12.com and learn from the best teachers in the world.

2. Dirty dishes
I used to hate washing dishes. My attitude changed one year when I realized that Ruth couldn't do the dishes because of her failing health. In that moment I decided that dirty dishes, especially during the holidays, represented an abundance of food, friends, and family. There are many who do not experience abundance during the holiday season. Those serving in our armed forces, suffering ill health, dying of hunger across the globe would do anything to wash dishes after a Thanksgiving meal with us. I encourage you to dirty a few extra dishes this holiday season by inviting someone who may have no place to go.

3. Tough times
The essence of growth is the management of anxiety during tough times. Nature, life, and research all teach us that hardship is critical to leadership. The ocean's reef is more spectacular on the side where the waves crash; those who fail to learn from difficulties are doomed to repeat them; eXtraordinary leaders understand that 70% of professional development occurs during challenging assignments.

Our challenging economy continues to cause anxiety in many hearts and homes. I too was anxious, especially at the start of the year after losing my largest (banking) client. I channeled my anxiety into positive energy by creating my new website (http://www.DaveJensenOnLeadership.com/) and the eXpansive Leadership Model (XLM) assessment tool (http://xlmassessment.com/). I am very thankful that these have been instrumental in the upswing in my business this year. It may be a stretch to say I am “thankful” for tough times, but it’s not a stretch to say that I’m choosing to GROW through tough times instead of merely going through them.

The holidays begin by giving thanks. I'm thankful that Ruth touched my heart. I am thankful that she taught me to count all things, not just my blessings. How about you?

Keep eXpanding,
Dave

P.S. Click on the link below (or paste it into your browser) to read about how my research on 171,000 leaders:

http://davejensenonleadership.com/XLMHoweXceptionalLeadersAchieveeXtraordinaryResults.html