One of my favorite cartoons shows a group of business people at a conference table. On the wall is a chart that depicts company performance trending in a steep decline. One guy says to another: “What we need here is a long-term quick fix.”
The gag line would be funnier if it didn’t reflect what many people apparently seek.
The search for the silver bullet seems especially common in leadership development circles. “Charm school” training is often rolled out with loud fanfare and high expectations. Then nothing much seems to change. Of course a big part of the problem is a lack of follow through and reinforcement. At the root is insufficient emphasis on the specific behaviors that produce consistently superior results.
There’s a better way to develop leaders. It’s outlined thoughtfully in Leadership Sustainability, a book by leadership experts Dave Ulrich and Norm Smallwood. Unlike many books in the genre, this one spotlights the disciplines required for leadership effectiveness over the long haul.
To get sharper focus on those disciplines, I interviewed my friend Norm Smallwood.
Rodger Dean Duncan: You make the point that “good strategy tells a story that trumps data.” What kinds of stories seem to pack the most influence?
Norm Smallwood: People grow up teaching and learning through stories. A story conveys what is most important to pay attention to and what happens if the priorities are not considered:
- Tell stories that focus on the future.
- Tell burning platform stories: stories that describe the gap between how things are today and how we’d like them to be in the future. Martin Luther King did a brilliant job of creating a narrative about a world without racism in his “I have a dream” speech.
- Tell stories that build a line of sight among ideas. Apple sponsored a series of comical commercials featuring Microsoft Man and Apple Boy that demonstrated the very different philosophies of the two companies.
- Tell stories that make heroes of people who support your agenda.
Duncan: In what ways can an honest self-evaluation of “routines” be helpful to a leader who really wants to improve?
Smallwood: Routines are what leaders do without thinking. Once these routines are identified through an honest assessment of how the leader spends her time, they can be adapted. We suggest eight steps in diagnosing and adapting leadership routines.
- Step 1: Look at your calendar and identify the routines that you have. We suggest that you focus on two to four routines that you may want to change.
- Step 2: Name each routine—give it a label that allows you to talk about, examine, and possibly change it.
- Step 3: Figure out where each routine came from. By knowing when and why you started a pattern, you can see if the conditions for it have changed or not.
- Step 4: Rate the relevance of the routine for your leadership goals. This allows you determine if you want to continue or change the routine.
- Steps 5 and 6: Examine the pros of the routine and the cons. The ratio of pro (step 5) to con (step 6) should be about 3:1. That is, you should have at least three reasons to do the routine for every one reason not to do it, or the routine should be further examined and possibly changed.
- Step 7: Name a new routine to replace each of the original routines that you’ve judged ineffective. Again, by naming a new routine, you will make it easier to talk about and more likely to be changed.
- Step 8: Outline the first steps at implementing new routines.
Duncan: “Accountability” is often touted as a key ingredient of effective leadership. What are some specific behaviors that a leader should exhibit to demonstrate—and model—accountability?
Smallwood: People expect leaders to be accountable and to at least have the intent of making correct choices. When that doesn’t happen, stakeholders feel violated. It’s a scam when someone who should be accountable is not. Any leader who expects sustainable results must ensure personal and organizational accountability.
Leaders build accountability in others and for themselves through four “behaviors” for accountability:
- Take personal responsibility.
- Go public.
- Be consistent with your personal values and brand.
- Hold others accountable.
Duncan: You quote football legend John Madden as saying “Coaches have to watch for what they don’t want to see and listen to what they don’t want to hear.” How does that apply to a business leader?
Smallwood: Most leaders don’t get good feedback. People tend to tell them what they want to hear. Leaders who know why and what they should change are more likely to accomplish their desires when they have support of those around them. Isolated actions are more difficult to sustain because they lack support. Thus the most important resources for leaders to access are human resources, both for themselves and for their organizations. It turns out that when desired behaviors are reinforced by personal coaching and institutionalized in HR practices, they are much more likely to be sustained and to support sustainable leadership.
Duncan: As the old saying goes, “smart people measure what they treasure.” What are some good criteria for leaders to use when deciding which metrics to keep and which metrics to toss?
Smallwood: For leaders to sustain the right changes, they need to move up an analytics hierarchy from reports (what happened) to alerts (what actions are needed) to predictive modeling (what should happen next?). To move up this hierarchy, leaders need information about what will happen with insight about what could happen. Moving up this decision hierarchy requires metrics that track sustainable change though four principles:
- Move from general objectives to specific measures.
- Measure what’s important rather than what’s easy to measure.
- Are transparent and timely.
- Tie to consequences.
Duncan: Strong leaders tend to be self-reflective, leveraging their strengths and learning from their mistakes. What behaviors or processes have you found to be helpful with this?
Smallwood: Leaders who practice self-reflection constantly observe themselves and want to improve how they come across. They ask themselves some of the following questions to help them see how they are doing:
- What insights have I gained about myself from what just took place (in that meeting, conversation, presentation)?
- Could I have misinterpreted some insights about myself? Do I need to test my insights?
- Have I discovered a specific attitude or behavior problem that leads me to be less effective than I want to be?
- When I try something new and succeed, why has my new approach been more effective than my traditional one?
- Am I consistently able to apply what I’ve learned when similar situations occur?
Through self-reflection, leaders can become aware of themselves and how they come across to others.
Rodger Dean Duncan is the bestselling author of CHANGE-friendly LEADERSHIP: How to Transform Good Intentions into Great Performance. Follow him on Twitter @DoctorDuncan
