My 9 secrets of successful leadership
August 12, 2008
I have lead many teams over the years and have had a good measure of success. Early on in life I have found what I consider is the key to leadership. According to Ayn Rand’s “The Virtue of Selfishness”, she asserts that being selfish is a real virtue (thus the fancy title)…that everyone acts in their own, best self interest. While her conclusions from there are suspect to me, I do see some value in what she is stating.
If I apply this principle to the problems I see with many leaders today, I would have to say that they are very short sighted. A leader must realize that it’s not about them. Really, please get over yourself. It’s about the team, it’s about the client and it’s about providing value. A position of leadership is as glorious as a position of a servant. All the glory should be focused on the team and not the leader. The leader accesses the landscape, navigates through the murky waters of business while identifying and removing obstacles. If you want to be selfish, then do so through your team’s development and success.
My 9 secrets of successful leadership. (Hint: Number 9 is the most important)
- 1. It’s not about me; understand from the beginning that it’s about the team, the client and the value that the team delivers to the client.
- 2. Maintain the highest degree of character; determine principles and do as you say.
- 3. Spark the team to gain momentum; be the visionary, create excitement, paint the picture of success.
- 4. Identify obstacles to progress; what’s real, what’s big, what’s critical.
- 5. Determine impact of obstacles on providing value; phase it in or phase it out then manage expectations.
- 6. Serve as the rudder to adjust course; the littlest part of the ship controls the direction of the ship and the leader is no different.
- 7. Eliminate obstacles; go over, under, around or through them, if necessary blow them up, either way they need to be removed.
- 8. Promote the team; appreciate and acknowledge contributions, direct praise back to the team, provide insulation from noise and politics, ensure avenues of growth and development for everyone.
- 9. Loop back through and start at point number 1
If you are not taking the arrows, then you are not leading! Get out there in front, take all the crap and give all the glory to the team!
~ Scott Felten
LUCRUM Radio: Episode 5, Craig Jolley Part 2
August 1, 2008
Listen as Craig Jolley, Web Marketing Manager with National City Mortgage, and I continue our discussion of emerging technology and how it will impact the future of business.
Craig has some great takes on how the “journey is as important as the destination” in terms of making technology that has an impact. He shares his thoughts on where technology has come from and where it is headed.
Thanks for Craig for taking time to speak with me, and for sharing his insights.
Enjoy!
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Team Journey: Steps from people to real team results!
July 16, 2008
I sat down with LUCRUM’s Eric Duell a couple of years ago and talked about the value of teams. Eric is a principal consultant and specializes in executive alignment sessions – but is the guru of communications. The truth of our conversation has never left me. He tied together results of a team through proper leadership and stepped me through the teams ‘ascent’. This talk of ours was so powerful, that a couple years later, I chose to work at LUCRUM.
I don’t want to steal Eric’s thunder but there are dependencies that are really worth noting. I’ll just highlight them below:
Step 1: Show each person that they are part of the team and that they can contribute to the success and problems of the team. This expectation should be set from the beginning – this gives them the freedom to move to the next step.
Step 2: People need to feel that their contribution is part of the team’s success. Sure, the ownership is on that person to ensure that they are ‘engaged’ with the team, but it’s also on the leader – to make sure that the person has the right avenues to contribute. Ensure that contributions are appreciated…publically.
Step 3: Once these contributions are shown, this build trust within the team. This is a key point because without trust the team is guarded and people don’t share. A solid foundation of trust is necessary for any team that wants to be highly successful.
Step 4: Now that we have trust, the team can have honest and open conversations. Debates are not win/lose, rather they are healthy and passionate. This level of communication reveals the right data for the team to act upon.
Step 5: The leader now has the foundation to have a commitment by each member to the team. Here we are focusing on a common course of action, the holdouts, cowboys and dissenters are not present…for the team’s value is realized and we think of the team success first.
Step 6: Now that we are committed, we can be accountable. Too many times this foundation is shortcutted and we have tentative accountability; one foot here and one foot there. But, this team is now in a position to expect real accountability and forms the right partnerships to help each other.
Step 7: Once we are at this level of accountability, we are ready to do what the team was designed for; looking for the best solution with a focused team. Here is where the power is and this focus is how to concentrate the talents, passions, desires and energy of the highly successful team!
So, you see, this progression from person to maximum results is framed by real team development and leadership – but must progress through clearly defined stages. This is a strategy we strive for at LUCRUM. When you peel back all that extra baggage, we are left with real people who contribute within real teams to focus on real value for our clients with a real focus.
Imagine a team with a missing piece. What if we did not expect a team member to perform? What if we did not appreciate contributions? How would it be if the team could not have open conversations and the real data was hidden for fear of rejection. Could the team be committed if we could not talk openly? If people were not accountable and not held accountable, could we succeed? Any missing piece above would cause the team to focus on their own agendas and not on finding the best possible solution.
This model was truly one of the reasons that I chose LUCRUM to take my career to the next level. The commitment to teams is core to what we are all about.
~ Scott Felten
LUCRUM Radio, Episode 2: Joel Suggs
July 3, 2008
Christy Rollyson, one of our Account Executives recently wrote about her first experiences on the golf course and how golf relates to business. I asked PGA member Joel Suggs to join me and Christy in a discussion about conducting business on the golf course, how to approach the game as a novice, and how to ensure a lifetime of continued improvement.
Joel is Southern Ohio’s only PGA Master Teaching professional. Golf Range Magazine has rated Joel one of the Top 50 Instructors in America, US Kids Golf recognized Joel as one of america’s Top 50 Kids Instructors, and Golf Digest ranks Joel as one of the Top 5 instructors in Ohio. Joes teaches at the Meadow Links & Golf Academy and can be reached at JoelSuggsGolfSuccess.com.
Listen in and let us know what you think.
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What is Consulting?
April 29, 2008
“Good Morning”
“Do you have a need for Contract Programmers?”
Here at LUCRUM, Chuck has done a great job at filtering our email solicitations. However, I still get the one above from some guy named Patrick Harris….it reminds me of how LUCRUM is positioned in the market as a consulting firm providing business and technology solutions.
There’s a real difference between “contract programmer” and “consultant.” The industry often mingles the definitions together and customers tend to negotiate for consulting services using “contract programmer” pricing.
LUCRUM has had a rich history of hiring IT professionals that thrive on “consulting” using their technology skills. With that statement, let’s ask ourselves “what is a consultant?” Consulting is bringing expertise of one’s experiences into a firm on a project or fee basis. One of the ironies of consulting is that the goal of the consultant must be to make him or herself obsolete.” All of us have been in the position of being frustrated (either as an internal or external consultant or even as a perm-placement worker) by management’s careful efforts to defeat any and all attempts on our part to transfer the knowledge we had to at least one (other) person in the organization. This puzzles me because I learned early on in my career that it is far more probable that a company will retain “intuitive knowledge” about their system/applications/data/whatever if more than one person has that knowledge.
To provide our technology expertise is simply not enough in today’s global economy. The disparity between India (and other Asian-based services) and the US will continue to have companies use “contract programmers” that are truly just “coders” and not consultants.
Why do I bring this up? It’s our livelihood! I also know that our mantra has been “85% social and 15% technical.” My ratio is skewed purposely to emphasize the requirement to “over-communicate” on every part of our daily assignment. The technology works; it doesn’t work if people are not communicating. As consultants, it’s up to us to take the lead responsibility with the customer on communications. That’s our largest challenge. You’ll see LUCRUM’s focus to grow our capabilities in this area with Customer Alignment Sessions, leveraging Whole Brain Organizational Development processes internally and with our customers, and a new larger emphasis on the consultant, and in developing unique professional skills. Jodie Heflin, as our Delivery Leader, has the proven track record of Customer-oriented 85/15 skills. It’s her goal to get all of our firm up to a higher level of capability; to “think” as a part of our customer’s business in addition to our technology capabilities.
The Tuesday Model
April 29, 2008
Tuesday, not as bad as Monday, and not as good as Wednesday. Its a forgotten day to most people. If you have an average and dull life, then you could say that your life is a bunch of Tuesdays I guess. Is there any way that Tuesday could mean…a little more…here’s something that I use to get me through the Tuesdays of my life.
I have been at LÛCRUM now for about three weeks, and one of the first projects I have been asked to participate in is concerning customer loyalty. So I thought to myself, customer loyalty, how to get it, and obviously how to retain it, when it hit me….Tuesday!
What does Tuesday have to do with customer loyalty, and what is the Tuesday model, you ask? The Tuesday model is a little bit of advice that was given to me by my mentor in College. A successful venture capitalist, and entrepreneur, a man that I respect. Anyways, one day we were out at dinner and I was picking his brain about business, life, etc. when he told me this. “Andrew, all relationships, business or personal, are based on three criteria. Expectations, understanding and trust.” E.U.T or T.U.E the prefix of Tuesday as a way to remember it. “These are the building blocks of relationships” he explained. His logic was that, once expectations are not met, then understanding becomes clouded and thus, trust falls apart. Naturally he concluded “that trust is the backbone or all relationships.” I listened to my mentor and it made sense, moreover, this was a man that I respected and I could see he was great a forging strong ties in every aspect of his life and this was the secret ingredient behind his success.
Since that day I have implemented the Tuesday Model into everything relationship I in my life; family, friends, work and girlfriends. It helps you empathize, which fosters understanding and clarity. I have also amended the model itself. Trust, Understanding and Expectations is how it was originally conceived, but a sub note to expectations is communication. Only if communication is clear can expectations be derived and met. Of course this screws up the acronym but it’s worth it.
So now that I have acquainted you with my philosophy (something that I will do a lot if you let me), it is time to implement the Tuesday Model with my tasks here at LÛCRUM. Going along with the theme of Tuesday, you can find further “rants” if you so desire every Tuesday from here on out. If you agree with me great, if you have anything to add, I’m all ears, or perhaps you think I’m insane, either way, discourse is always welcome.
A tool that will help you ideate!
April 23, 2008
According to a recent Accenture Survey (April 3, 2008) - “Nearly two-thirds of 601 executives in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and Canada claimed that their organizations business strategy is either totally or largely dependent on innovation.”
Ideation, it’s puts the Ying in your Yang – because it leads to innovation… But how do we go about thinking about thinking? One way it to take advantage of what been done. But first lets talk about Homer.
I love that episode when Homer Simpson runs for the office of the sanitation department. His campaign slogan was “Can’t someone else do it”? Well, if its been done before – whether right or wrong, lets learn from it. Recently I have been making use of a tool that helps me think of terms…a tool that was created by a company that has a high dollar per share value and we all have come to know and love (and love to hate) – Google.
There are times when it’s hard to be exhaustive. I remember the times when my kids were young – at the end of a story they would ask…what else daddy? It’s not unlike situations that we are faced with today. When we are talking to the business or to peers alike, its always the case – what else? Today, I am going to recommend a tool that I sometimes use to help me build out a framework for analysis. Well, that might be an overstatement. It is like using a hammer to build a house – it’s just one tool of many.
The situation: you are meeting with your customer to frame a strategic discussion or to set a structure for analysis. For example, you are meeting with the business leadership to discuss a database consolidation effort – there is no precedent set and your beginning point is a real white board. It’s helpful to begin with an analysis framework – or a conceptual model that represents the enterprise and its nuances.
Often times, its good to look at a matrix – where there is relevance on where the rows and columns meet. On the left side of the matrix, you represent driving factors that feed in to a decision. But what is the list? Where do you start? Now, we need something across the top… Maybe the approach to scaling may make sense.
Yes, we can do most of it from our experience. But it’s always helpful to query some good data. Google has been doing data analysis around terms (and their relationship to terms) for years and are quite good at it. And they have opened up some of their findings. Of course, anything Google is very large. To manage this they exposed a database with a simple front end.
The concept is simple; type in some items in a list (or set as they call it) and click either ‘Large Set’ or ‘Small Set’. The application sends your input to their Google brain – runs some analytics on relationships and relevance of your terms to what others have ‘put together’ at some point during the not so distant past – in other words, Google is learning what terms kind of relate to other terms. What returns will absolutely astonish you, make you happy or leave you sad. Sometimes it returns nuggets of thought that you may have missed. Sometimes it returns things that don’t make sense – but you have to get good at using this tool!
TRY IT HERE: http://labs.google.com/sets
The magic here (or the power to harness) is using the results to think about things in a different way. Make use of the terms to abstract to higher levels or reach exhaustion of set terms. Once you figure out how to make use of Google’s term analysis, it will help you reach exhaustion – ok, that’s a punny stretched a bit…. what I mean to say is that it will help you think of those things on the tip of your tongue or terms hiding deeply within your brains – even presenting new things that you should consider.
Of course, everything is clickable and it initates a Google page – ready for you to continue your exploring!
For example, when I type in; love, peace and joy and click the Small Set. It returns the following:
- peace
- love
- joy
- kindness
- gentleness
- goodness
- faithfulness
- patience
- faith
- hope
- longsuffering
- happiness
- meekness
- jesus
Clicking the ‘Grow Set’ returns:
- peace
- love
- joy
- faith
- hope
- happiness
- kindness
- patience
- gentleness
- goodness
- life
- faithfulness
- god
- family
- humility
- prayer
- compassion
- friendship
- beauty
- jesus
- forgiveness
- truth
- generosity
- spirituality
- christianity
- trust
- justice
- courage
- friends
- charity
- wisdom
- gratitude
- honesty
- strength
- qotd
- bible
- grace
- blessings
- respect
- christian
- healing
- success
- freedom
- religion
- light
- mercy
- loyalty
- heaven
- longsuffering
Going the other way (technology), when I type in (Oracle, Microsoft, IBM) the small set returns:
- oracle
- microsoft
- ibm
- sap
- sun
- cisco
- hp
- novell
- intel
- bea
- sybase
- adobe
- citrix
Growing this returns:
- oracle
- microsoft
- ibm
- hp
- cisco
- intel
- sun
- novell
- 3com
- dell
- sap
- apple
- accenture
- symantec
- cognos
- adobe
- compaq
- sony
- toshiba
- amd
- acer
- fujitsu
- manugistics
- citrix
- agile
- lexmark
- marque
- sybase
- linksys
- webmethods
- epson
- apc
- bea
- deloitte
- netgear
- seagate
- ariba
- tibco
- linux
- ugs
- ptc
- canon
Going fruity and typing in; apple, banana, cantaloupe returns:
- apple
- banana
- cantaloupe
- pineapple
- apricot
- watermelon
- grapefruit
- orange
- grapes
- lemon
- cherry
- avocado
- lime
- mango
- blueberry
Growing the set returns:
- cantaloupe
- banana
- apple
- orange
- cherry
- lemon
- strawberry
- mango
- pineapple
- apricot
- pear
- grape
- watermelon
- blueberry
- papaya
- coconut
- kiwi
- chocolate
- lime
- blackberry
- grapefruit
- peach
- assorted
- pomegranate
- raspberry
- lychee
- tamarind
- vanilla
- cinnamon
- grapes
- sweet
- mint
- avocado
- plum
- blended
- cranberry
- tomato
- citrus
Want to know grocery stores – type in Kroger, Tesco, Bigg’s and Google Sets will return:
- tesco
- kroger
- wal mart
- safeway
- albertsons
- carrefour
- publix
- winn dixie
- sainsbury
- target
- asda
- walgreens
- meijer
- costco
- rite aid
- cvs
- food lion
- waitrose
- auchan
- kmart
- somerfield
- fred meyer
- harris teeter
- k mart
- home depot
- morrisons
- heb
- sainsbury’s
- hypernova
- ahold
- albertson’s
- sam’s club
- makro
- piggly wiggly
- ingles
- co op
- office depot
- globus
- kaufland
- metro
- giant
- eckerd
- sears
- walmart
- supervalu
- giant eagle
- king soopers
One word of caution – it is in Google’s Labs – their playground. Its fun to play there, but you may get sand in your pants!
Have Fun!
~ Scott Felten
We Win When We Talk About Them
April 17, 2008
I never thought I would pick up sales tips from James Carville, but sure enough it has happened. Over the past weekend I was watching one of the Sunday morning political shows, and Carville, joined by his wife Mary Matalin, was discussing the 2008 Presidential Campaign. Specifically he discussed one of the tenets of running a great campaign he learned from former President Clinton, who love him or hate him, was a great campaigner. The idea he put forth was so simple but so correct. “If we are talking about them, we are winning.” “If we are talking about us, we are losing.” Now, the idea behind his comment is perhaps a little different in the context of a political campaign as opposed to a sales call, but how incredibly insightful is that. The best sales calls often involve very little “selling.” If the person across the table from you is talking, and you are discussing them – not you – you are winning. I have experienced sales calls where you trot out every feature, function, advantage, benefit, company history, past clients, and on and on, only to walk away saying to myself, “I just don’t think we will win that one.” By the same token, many of the best calls I have ever made, involve asking questions, and then listening to someone else talk about themselves. Yes I can tell people LUCRUM is Cincinnati’s best provider of Data Warehousing, Business Intelligence, Collaboration, (all of which I believe) until I am blue in the face, but if I don’t understand them first, I am losing.
I observed this first hand today while on a sales call with two of my colleagues. We had a great meeting that lasted well over an hour, very little of which was spent discussing LUCRUM. In doing so, we identified numerous business problems LUCRUM can solve through our understanding of technology. More importantly we took the first steps toward building a new relationship with them based on understanding of their unique business needs. No pushy sales pitch. No dog and pony show. Just having a real and meaningful conversation about them When we are talking about them… we win.
Giving Back – Continued
March 26, 2008
I was checking out our new blog today, and saw a post by one of our newest employees, David Bowman. It is great to hear about people in our company giving back. It is an important part of our culture and frankly, it’s one of the most special parts of living on this earth.
I guess when I think about giving, I go back to my parents and the stories that they taught me about their growing up in the Great Depression. In today’s world and the complex financial crisis that the sub-prime mortgage market has along with the recent failings of some of Wall Street’s giants, I have to admit: I still think we as a society have no clue about the real impact of what our families and relatives went through in the Great Depression. My parents were fortunate. My mother is First Generation American. Her parents immigrated from Eastern Austria-Hungary and the Ukraine shortly after the beginning of this last century. Coal-miner, shoemaker, Goodyear Rubber & Tire factory work, her parents always put food on the table and had a modest life of comfort and stability. During the Depression, they constantly had people coming to their door asking for chores. Back then, pride was 100% of your character. One never took hand-outs. You would not take “free food” even though my grandparents were willing and able to share. My father grew up the 6th child of a Southern Alabama farm family. Again, lots of people were very unfortunate in the South during the Depression. He learned to give to his neighbors and support the community. This was a practice that he continued throughout his entire life.
Fast forward over my years growing up with them. My 2 brothers and I were in Boy Scouts in our formative years. Outside of camping in the Upstate New York Adirondacks once a month, community service was the core of our activities. Weekends were spent participating in newspaper drives, helping in the neighborhood parks, cleaning up the “teen center” and many other volunteer activities. We learned to support our community.
Fast forward to today: I still have it in my blood. LUCRUM is committed to participating in Community Service through providing 4 approaches: economic, leadership, professional, and material assistance to local and regional organizations. Economic simply means donated cash. Leadership is where people in our firm invest their time in guiding, assisting, participating in community organizations. Professional is where LUCRUM provides consulting, web development, and general software development services. LUCRUM’s community support initiatives have recently included: The United Way(www.uwgc.org) and the Tocqueville Society Campaign, the Central Clinic (www.centralclinic.org), the Boy Scouts(www.danbeard.org), the Evans’ Scholar Golf Outing, the Epilepsy Foundation, the Cincinnati Art Museum (www.cincinnatiartmuseum.org), the Fine Arts Fund (www.fineartsfund.org) and their new Technology Sector campaign, and the National Father-Son Tennis Tournaments to name a few. As you can imagine, it’s contagious with our employees and their commitment to the community amplifies ours.
So, “thank-you” David Bowman. “Thank-you” to all of our LUCRUM professionals in their commitment in supporting our community.
Follow the Leader?
March 25, 2008
More and more in today’s spin zones, trade magazines, training classes, and blogs, a focus on leadership continues to grow – a trait that many feel everyone must be good at. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, there’s becoming a more and more noticeable lack of focus on what it takes to be a good follower. After all, if no one’s following, why lead?
Leadership demands great capacity for learning, communication, discipline, humility, vision, execution, initiative, and host of other characteristics and traits bantered about by today’s leadership “gurus”. All of which are good and essential, to one degree or another. Interestingly enough, these same traits are essential to good followership as well. Think about it. As a leader, don’t you look for people to be a part of your team that have these traits? I certainly do!
Another way to look at leaders and followers is to consider that our leaders today are actually followers too. Think about it for minute, the VP’s unto the SVP’s, unto the C-level, unto the board of directors, unto the people (public company example). So while the SVP for business development is certainly in a leadership role, they’re following someone higher up on the corporate ladder.
Is there a difference between leaders and followers? Absolutely. Is everyone in a leadership position, absolutely not. Is everyone in a state of followership, absolutely.
I believe that in order to be a great leader, one must be a great follower. And since we’re all followers to one degree or another, who better to place responsibility on for the development of followers than on ourselves! Confusing? Not really. It’s a state of reality that we too often choose to ignore, especially if we’re already in a “leadership” position.
So what then can be said about good followership? Well in today’s media, the hyper-competitive market, Wall Street, you name it, not very much is said about being a good follower. Why is this? I’ll argue that much of it stems from humanity’s inner will to appear stronger, smarter, “better” than the next person. Our own egos. Admit it, we’re all afraid of embarrassment. Maybe we think that we won’t make enough money simply being a good follower (…don’t forget the SVP example above). The list goes on…..
How then can we make a difference? By becoming better examples to others in our current follower roles. Some spin this as “Managing up” or “Leading your boss”. Call it anything you want, bottom line is most of us have as much room for improvement as we have to offer others. Without attempting to pull together an exhaustive step-by-step recipe for success, let me suggest a few principles to guide us.
Start by recognizing that everyone’s (including you) following something/someone. There’s our (your) baseline.
Next, place yourselves in the position, for example, of wanting to get a promotion, a raise, etc. (this shouldn’t be hard to do) How would you go about getting that? Would supporting your boss be a good start? I would think so. What can you do better, different, more of, less of? Sorry, no hints here, you all know these answers.
Next… put your ego on the shelf. Pride cometh before the fall.
The Journey. We must ask ourselves what is the true purpose of being a good follower or leader. The Whats, the Whys, the Where To’s…. To what do we aspire? Is there an end? Is it just money? Hopefully not. I say it’s a journey…one on which we’re all traveling. Becoming an effective follower or leader is a journey….the journey is about people working together in many different roles to achieve a worthy ideal. To cultivate others, to learn, to live, to perform, to decide, to take risks, to laugh. When we focus our time talents and energies here, leaders will emerge, followers will rise up, and there”ll be no end to the possibilities that we can achieve. This is the paradigm shift we all can help make happen.
Go and make a difference,
John