Archive for April, 2007

Recent articles on leadership from around the web…

• Where Have all the Leaders Gone?
  Lee Iococca emerges from 15 years of retirement with his guns drawn. His target: overpriced CEOs, politicians, and even his successors at Chrysler. “We’ve got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff.”
• There’s No CEO School
  Steve Ballmer learned to be a CEO through on-the-job training, growing with Microsoft from leading 30 people to leading 77,000. David Lieberman of USA Today talks with Steve about growing with Microsoft, finding happiness in work, and facing tough competition.
• Finding Talent is Top Issue
  The Ken Blanchard Companies have published their annual  Corporate Issues Survey. Increasing demand for skilled leadership, doubled with the coming leadership drought, has made attracting and retaining key talent the biggest issue corporations face today.
• Leadership Begins at School
  There might not be a CEO School, but it looks like leadership begins in school. A recent survey showed 9 out of 10 top executives held at least two leadership roles during their school career. Management Trends reports on the survey.

Technorati Tags: leadership, lee iococca, steve ballmer, corporate issues, leadership development

Recent articles on leadership from around the web…

• Travel Like a CEO
  Not quite ready to drop $12 million on a basic model private jet? The New York Times shows us ways to step into the world of executive travel on a slightly smaller budget. Hourly rates start at $1,800.
• Better Hiring Equals Better Employees
  Of course you want the best candidate for the job. The problem with hiring is that every candidate is on their best behavior during the interview and stacks their references in their favor. CIO Magazine looks past the obvious and gives us three strategies for better hiring.
• (Mis)communicating Through Email
  Sorting through the inbox seems to be becoming a full time job. It’s become all-too-temping to fire of emails and responses without giving the content much thought. To help keep our communications on track, the Seattle PI reminds us of etiquette advice that will help us get our message across.
  
  
• Executive Job Searches are Hard
  Despite experience and connections, executives often discover that looking for a new job is harder than they’d thought. The Career Journal looks at three challenges that experienced job seekers often face when heading out to the job market.

Technorati Tags: executive travel, private jets, better hiring, email etiquette, executive job search, leadership

Recent articles on leadership from around the web…

• An MBA is not Preparation for Leadership
  While demand for MBAs continues to soar, the usefulness of the degree is coming into question. “Less than a quarter of US executives felt that an M.B.A. provided excellent and adequate preparation for a leadership position.”
• The Pathological Leader
  Part of what makes The Office so funny is that it’s at least a little bit true. Sooner or later, we’ll all come across a boss that is narcissistic, clueless, and completely out of touch. As the New York Magazine shows us, it turns out that that very clueless narcissism may be the very personality trait that propels the jerk up the corporate ladder. “The narcissist believes that it’s his natural right to be the boss.”
• Check Your Boss’s References
  Thinking about taking a new job and want to know if your new boss is a pathological leader driven up the ladder by their narcissism? Guy Kawasaki shows us how we can use LinkedIn to do a reference check on a potential boss.
• The 10 Worst Corporate Policies
  We’re often told about the best companies to work for, but competition for the ‘worst companies to work for’ is too fierce to begin to tackle a top 10 list. Instead, Liz Ryan gives us the 10 worst corporate practices.

Technorati Tags: MBA, narcissism, leadership development, linkedin, corporate policies

Just how good of a job do you need to do to get recognized? Last weekend, the Washington Post ran a story about an experiment they conducted that might answer this question.

On the morning of January 12, the Washington Post sent the world-renowned violinist Joshua Bell into a Metro station to spend an hour playing for passers-by. During the hour-long performance, Bell performed a handful of the greatest classical pieces ever written. Their experiment: during the busy morning commute and far from normal context, would beauty transcend? Would the combined genius of Bell’s performance and some of the greatest compositions ever written be recognized by morning commuters? Would they stop and listen? Would they reach into their wallets and show recognition through financial contribution?

“The acoustics proved surprisingly kind. Though the arcade is of utilitarian design, a buffer between the Metro escalator and the outdoors, it somehow caught the sound and bounced it back round and resonant.”

The result: of the 1,097 people that passed by Bell during his performance, only a handful were drawn to his music. He received a total of $32.17 in tips. Ironically, every single child that passed by attempted to stop and listen, only to be hastened on by their parents.

“A middle-age man altered his gait for a split second, turning his head to notice that there seemed to be some guy playing music. Yes, the man kept walking, but it was something.”

So back to our question: Just how good of a job do you need to do to get recognized? If we look at Joshua Bell’s performance in the Metro station, we see that without the right promotion or in the wrong context, even genius can go completely unrecognized. We know that when performing in a concert hall, Bell gets the undivided attention of thousands. But left to stand on their own, without the support of proper promotion or the reinforcement of the right context, his skills went unnoticed.

Don’t let this happen to you. No matter how good a job you do, like Bell, if you do not position yourself correctly in your career, surround your skills with the right context, and promote yourself properly, you can expect your job to go virtually unnoticed.

“At a music hall, I’ll get upset if someone coughs or if someone’s cellphone goes off. But here, my expectations quickly diminished. I started to appreciate any acknowledgment, even a slight glance up.”

What do you need to do to make sure your talents get recognized?

Listen to Joshua Bell’s complete January 12 performance in the DC Metro Station.

Technorati Tags: recognition, joshua bell, leadership, promotion

Recent articles on leadership from around the web…

• The Founding Father Returns - Interview with Charles Schwab
  The SF Chronicle talks with Charles Schwab about his return from retirement to run the company he founded. Upon his arrival, he faced some big challenges: disconnection with customers, excessive overhead, and a loss of focus. “It was time for me to make some really bold decisions. Only a founding father could really do these things, because they were pretty scary for anyone else to do… because they were potentially risky.”
• Leading the Founding Fathers - Interview with Google’s Eric Schmidt
  Wired Magazine talks with Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt about the inner workings of the leadership team at Google. “The characteristics of most companies, in my observation, is that you don’t have a lot of buy-in. The decisions are top down or they’re driven from some external thing. People are like, ‘Oh, screw that, they don’t really buy in.’ But a decision-making process that is a sum of its iterative process, which is how Google works, generates commitment and passion that makes my job very easy.”
• Your Values, on Your Time
  A recent survey claims that one third of workers feel that their employer’s core values are not consistent with their own. “Management often seems to expect employees to ignore their personal values in favour of the ones posted on the wall.”
• Your Values, on Our Dime
  Not every company is disconnected with their employees’ values. Fast Company looks at some of the companies on the Center for Companies That Care’s 2007 Honor Role. In the honor role, they give 10 characteristings of a caring company. Number one: Sustains a work environment founded on dignity and respect for all employees.

Technorati Tags: interviews, charles schwab, eric schmidt, google, values, leadership

Last Saturday LA Times ran an article on the “Return of the Glass Ceiling” or as they put it, the “female free management zone” of corporate business. This article calls attention to a subject many have been lulled into thinking is on the way to be solved: the common belief is that women are assuming more corporate management positions and directorships and that women have free choice in how and where they advance in their careers.

Statistics show that this is definitely not the case; in fact the situation is at best status quo or getting worse for women in corporations in spite the occasional standout exception like Indra Nooyi, the new CEO of Pepsi. There is a glaring dearth of women in the top executive suites of major corporations in the US in spite the fact that women have been getting over a third of the MBA’s since the 1980’s and that women comprise of over fifty percent of the managerial and professional workforce.

In 64 of the Fortune 500 companies, there are no women at all in the management team – house hold names like Owens-Illinois, Saks Inc. Borders, Newell Rubbermaid, Toll Brothers, and Whirlpool. These companies’ customers are predominantly female and yet they do not seem to recognize that having women on the leading team will add to the productivity and effectiveness of their organizations.

Women are starting businesses at twice the pace of men and their businesses are growing at twice the growth rate as all firms. Yet in corporations women earn only 75% of what men make in comparable positions, and they are assigned to be in staff position twice as often.

The issue of the Glass Ceiling for women is a particularly timely topic since the X and Y generations have grown up with less of an awareness/need of having to fight for their rights in education and sports. They are now just beginning to realize that the rise up the corporate hierarchy is fraught with barriers that they thought was dealt with and broken by their mothers and grandmothers.

The Glass Ceiling in corporate business is still very much in place and equally rigid are the Glass Walls, which the LA Times article also alluded to. Glass walls, the invisible obstructions that keep women from learning the range of skills that is required to rise up in a company is even more insidious. Why should everyone care? Because it is good for business. A study conducted by Catalyst , a nonprofit research and advisory organization, showed that companies with more women executives financially outpace those with fewer women executives.

Simply put, the reason that we all need to be concerned about breaking down the glass ceiling and glass walls is that in today’s world it is foolhardy to bypass half the available talent, especially since we are experiencing a skilled labor imbalance and shortage globally. It is good for business, to be in tune with our customers’ needs. With women holding over 80% of the purchasing power in the US, we need to know and understand our customer. To integrate the customer group into the business just makes good business sense.

Additionally we need to expand the issue of the glass ceiling and glass walls to all affected groups – all who are not similar in ways to the current management demographics. This concept of diversity expands past the gender issue and includes all ethnicity, national origin, regional differences and religious/sexual orientation. The time to address the Glass Ceiling and Glass Walls is upon us.

Interested in learning more? Attend Marilyn’s upcoming webinar, Glass Ceilings and Glass Walls, where she will discuss the tools and actions steps to help you remove these barriers to achieving your full potential.

Marilyn Tam is a Corporate Consultant, Speaker, Author, Executive Director and Co-founder of Us Foundation. Ms. Tam was formerly the President of Reebok Apparel and Retail Group; CEO of Aveda Corp. and Vice President of Nike Inc. She is also a successful entrepreneur, having developed and built companies in corporate consulting & training, a web portal company and a supply chain software company. Marilyn Tam’s international selling book, “How to Use What You’ve Got to Get What You Want”, combines her business acumen with her goal of giving back to show others how to achieve their dreams. www.HowToUseWhatYouveGot.com

Technorati Tags: diversity, glass ceilings, career, leadership, indra nooyi

Recent articles on leadership from around the web…

• When April Fools Happens on a Workday…
  Unless you’re working weekends, you probably didn’t get a chance to pull any good April Fools pranks on your co-workers. In case you want to plan ahead, here are 10 good workplace pranks.
  
• Focus on ‘We’ Instead of ‘Me’
  Let’s face it: getting recognized for your accomplishments is important to your career.  But be careful not to blow your own horn too loudly.  The New York Times shares some tips on getting and giving recognition.
• What’s Your Decision Making Style?
  HBR Online takes a look at the five different decision making styles. Want to make sure your brilliant idea gets heard? Take the time to match your persuasion strategy to the decision-making style of the person you are wooing.
• Unlimited Vacation Days, With a Catch
  The San Jose Mercury News takes a look at Netflix’s vacation policy: “Take as much as you’d like. Just make sure your work is done.”

Technorati Tags: april fools, workplace pranks, praise, recognition, persuasion, decision making, vacation days, netflix, leadership