Hero's Code

The Privilege of Leadership

In today's world it is hard to be a leader yet it's a real privilege.

We are suffocated with data yet short of real information and no matter how hard we work it can be hard to sense achievement when so much remains to be done.

When you lead you ask your people for their commitment and loyalty and sometimes you will be disappointed.  I know people who let such disappointment lead them to a style of leadership based on orders and control.  From then on, communication and command become mixed and this will lead to problems.

Think and act like a General if you must - but understand that at its best, military leadership is not about rigid control.  It relies on trust and clarity of communication at all levels in your organisation.

It's not easy but it can be a lot of fun.  Calling the shots carries a great deal of responsibility, not only for yourself, but for your people.

Your employees’ lives, to a large extent, are dependent on you and your decisions.  Bad strategy can end up affecting a lot of people. This is where being a leader takes on a new dimension. 

Every decision you make is an important one, whether there are twenty thousand people working for you or only one.  Make a mistake with your first employee and you might never have a second one.

If you are extra careful when hiring employees, management becomes a lot easier.  I have in the past hired people because my head told me they should be good - even when my heart told me - careful this is a Bad Idea!!  Bottom Line: Find people who suit your business style and you’ll have fewer problems to deal with as time goes by.

Pace of Life

From time to time people will ask me about what matters most to me - the actual achievement of life goals or the journey toward them.  My snap answer is usually that the journey is what counts but there are limits to this  - when we really think about it.

I have sports car and a motorcycle and I like to drive quickly but safely and at my own pace.  It's not so much that I need to get to a destination quicker than anyone else - for me its all about the pleasure and experience of driving. 

Now I know that not everyone feels the same way.  I meet people on the road who want to race me because they feel they have something to prove.  I will get out their way.  Its nice to not play their game because ultimately I know that my car is fast enough to go faster than them if it really mattered.

I meet other people on the road.  They usually wear a cap.  They grip the steering wheel as if it would float away.  They travel at 25 in a 50 zone and won't move over.  They have all week to make this particular journey and yet they choose this busy time when the rest of us do have places to go and people to see.

Does anyone else think that older people should really be moving faster as they age rather than slower?  Surely if they have fewer years left to live they could feel a greater sense of urgency and really get on with making it to a few more destinations.

My martial arts sensei told me that when things are going great then just remember not to get too happy because things will change - and when things are bad don't get too upset because things will change.  Like so many things in life we need awareness of what matters and we need to find some personal balance. 

When we have a feeling that we have so many goals to achieve it is important to remember to notice the journeys we are on in this moment.  When we seem to need to rest from achievement its nice to remember that we can still assist many others on their journey - or at the very least get out of their way.

Screwing Your Relationship Capital

I recently had an opportunity to work with a team of specialists inside a large software company. This group of professionals provide services to executives only within their company and they were worried that these execs see them as an "endagered" species. In fact, I had been asked to attend to facilitate some ideas on how they might develop better relationships with their clients.

The brief was a bit vague and so I was grateful to sit in on their meeting prior to my bit. I listened to the language they used to describe the various relationships with their clients. It went something like this..

He is an insidious force They are the three dark forces He would stab us in the back Wouldn't want to meet him in a dark alley He is a real problem child He is potentially very scary We are an ant on his butt He could make or break us

..and more like this.

When it was my turn to lead the session, they were looking for a set of recipies, tips and hints that would help them transform the relationships with their clients. I suppose I could just stick with what they expected - after all, my client was willing to pay for that kind of stuff.

Maybe its my age but there are definitely times when the client doesn't know what's best. I don't think I will be asked back. From my viewpoint, why should I teach them language patterns and tricks of influence when all they would do is layer them on top of a bunch of insincere feelings.

Surely the right thing for them to do if they want other people to change the way they perceive them is to change themselves first. This group couldn't believe that the most authentic and often effective way of inducing change in others is to "go there first"

Strategy

A friend of mine who is relatively new to coaching asked if I could advise him on something that was troubling him.  He had a coaching client who in the course of their meeting had a revelation that simply blew away a problem he had been facing.  My friend was concerned that he felt as if he had done nothing – he had simply been there for his client and in his heart wasn’t sure that he had deserved his fee. 

I found this quite funny because my friend was in the mistaken belief that coaching is necessarily about a state of “doing” – my feeling is that often mastery in coaching or consulting is very much about a state of “being.”  And that is very much worth paying for.

When a coach is thinking too much about what she or he has to do then invariably their focus is in the wrong place.  I want my attention to be totally on the client, providing them with a safe space to step back perhaps and get a new perspective on their issues.  The last thing I should be thinking about is “first I will ask this question and maybe then I will ask that question.”  The most powerful interventions are those where the client’s problems simply go away and the coach gets the blame for it.

As a coach we allow clients to get a different perspective on their issues – they are the ones that should solve their problems.

My Maori friend Hirini Reedy clued me into a neat metaphor for problem solving based on the patterns of the fern frond.  The idea stems from the warrior arts of the Maori people.

Nature has always taught humankind. The Maori are no different. The animals, the trees, the weather patterns, the waters and nature herself were all teachers of the warrior.  In the wananga (school) of life, the sky is the roof, the earth is the floor and all life forms are teachers.

The Zulu peoples used the horns of a buffalo as a strategic pattern to defeat the British army in the 19th Century.  The Maori used the fern frond as a tactical pattern to encircle, envelop and crush their enemies.  It could be used as a tactical maneuver or a weaponry sequence. Look at the fern frond. Watch how it grows and spirals. Examine the fractal, self-similar patterns of the small shoots.  Notice the same patterns emerging.

Apply the fern frond metaphor to a problem you may have.  Encircle it from different directions. Look at it through different eyes. Approach it from different angles. Upside - down. Back to front. Inside-out. Watch a solution sprout from within your consciousness.  If you can do this maybe you won’t need to pay a coach.

Vortex thinking

In our work we must learn to cooperate with our colleagues, subordinates and superiors.  We all know that there is a limit to what person alone can achieve even if we always don't behave that way.  We need willing cooperation but control is ultimately limiting in its effectiveness.

I often meet people in my work that say "Yes, I trust my team" and yet they don't realise that their team mates don't see them behave in that way at all.  The harder they try to control, the more they deceive and manipulate the more difficult to get sustainable results.

Charismatic leadership is not necessarily good leadership but it brings a curious power.

With charismatic leaders my observation is that they have an ability to "magnetise" people to their purpose; often and even, without expressely asking for it.  It is a principle of resonance that charismatic people represent a strong, coherent signal that has an ability to entrain others to it.  Resonance occurs when the "head" and "heart" are aligned; when the words and feelings underneath a message are coherent so that the energy contained in them is multiplied.

We have all had that experience of listening to someone and not believing a word they say - an incoherent message if you like, when compared with the feelings we have when exposed to someone who we would say is "speaking from the heart." 

It is difficult to explain but we all have had experience of being exposed to coherence.
Kazuo Inamori, founder of Kyocera Corp, talked of "working in the centre of the vortex."

His feeling was that it is possible to aggressively pursue your work so that people around you spontaneously cooperate with you.  Unless you are an authentic leader, you might end up being outside of the vortex with someone else in the centre of it.

Imagine that in any organisation there will be many business vortexes, like the currents of a river.  If you are just floating round them the danger is that you will be engulfed by them.

To experience joy and zest in work is it possible that you need to be in the centre of a strong vortex?  As you tackle your work enthusiastically will you notice others being drawn into this?

Inamori believed that whether or not your way of thinking is independent or aggressive enough to create your own powerful vortex will decide not only the results of your work but also the results of your life.