Leaders Listen!

Friends, 

Recently, I had the opportunity to work with a group of leaders negotiating a series of physical obstacles.  After each one, we conducted a quick “After Action Review” and then rotated leadership roles so that all participants had a chance to be the leader.

In one of the groups, the designated leader said, “Okay team, here is what I think,” and then proceeded to explain his proposed solution.  Afterwards, he asked, “What do you all think?”  The response:  Insert cricket noise!  Not a single word and certainly not anything to counter the “leader’s” suggested way ahead.

After rotating roles, a subsequent team lead began with, “Okay team, what do you think?”  That’s right, before she said anything about her thoughts, she asked for input from the rest of her team.  The result:  All sorts of great ideas, one of which ended up being the way they ultimately decided to go.

How and when we ask others for input matters greatly.  Those who go first with their own ideas must know that proposal, 99 times out of 100, will be the way.  THE way.  Asking others what they think, without “poisoning the well” with our own solutions, truly makes a difference.  Listen, understand, probe with questions, debate.  Then…maybe…give your ideas!

That’s how you get over most obstacles – physical or otherwise.  Try talking less and listening more to be a great communicator…and leader!  That...is Leader Business!

The Town Hall

"Maintaining our culture and sensibilities means spending time with everyone who joins.  It means bringing the team together every week to talk about our projects, progress, and vision.  It means focus."  David Karp, CEO, Tumblr

Let's hear it for the Town Hall meeting.  In the increasingly flat corporate world, I think this is a critical communication tool; one that should be part of how we align our team and magnify our drumbeat.  It is a way for our teammates to hear directly from the boss -- without the filters that can often water down the message.

In the "good old days" of top-down, command and control, bureaucracy, we might have shied away from these sorts of things.  Information went from the leader, to her 5-7 direct reports, and so on down to the "troops."  Who knows what message they ultimately receive?  Undoubtedly, it will often lack the context and the focus that might have been intended by the time it reaches the "doers."  But, in the interest of not jumping the chain of command, that is how we communicated.  Still do, in many cases.

There is another way.  It's the Town Hall!  As the quote from the Tumblr CEO above suggests, it is important to let people hear from their boss, to feel the vision, and to understand the big picture.  This is the sort of communication paradigm that enables initiative -- employees who hear and embrace the direction of the company and the intent of their leader.  It fosters engagement, with teammates who can directly talk to their boss.  And, when people hear directly from their leader and are able to discuss issues in the open, it encourages dialogue and cultivates empowerment.

At my last assignment in Afghanistan, I held a weekly town hall.  I really thought it important for everyone to hear of our successes, know of our challenges, and be reminded of where we were headed overall.  It was also the forum in which we welcomed new team members and introduced them to the rest of the team.  Powerful stuff.  Growing up, we would have the same sort of sessions in troop units at the "battalion" level, with monthly "formations" to recognize excellence and to hear from the Commander.

However these are done, I'd recommend probably a few considerations:

-- Be consistent.  Don't start doing these and then stop.  Cynicism will take hold and the intentions, while good, will be lost in the rumbling.  Pick a day/time and frequency and stay with it.

-- Recognize excellence.  Consistent with the adage of, "praise in public and criticize in private," use these forums to amplify those actions that align with the organization's vision and values.  Highlight those who take initiative if that is important to you.  Showcase those who go the extra mile.

-- Don't shy from discussing challenges but...keep it generic.  Personal criticism is best done behind closed doors.  On the other hand, teammates need to know of issues and where they can help.  They need to be able to learn from setbacks.  Use these sessions as mini-After Action Reviews (AARs) and see how to turn losses into future victories by engaging the full team.

-- Make time for listening.  Open the floor to see what is on people's minds.  Don't miss the chance to hear what is important to others.  While there may not be time to solve everyone's problem, take a note and follow up!  Don't hesitate to pass the problem to the person's supervisor if that is where it should reside.  Show empathy while using, not bypassing, the chain of command as part of the solution.

-- Have an agenda.  Don't wing it.  Time is money.  Don't waste it by being unprepared.  Have a few key bullets to discuss.  Get in, get out, and stay on schedule.  30 minutes -- max.

-- Have fun.  Town Halls can certainly help break down barriers.  People can see and understand the sort of culture that their leader seeks when that person is out in front -- no shields, no inner circle.  Demonstrate a good balance of mission focus, pride in people, and genuine enjoyment in talking about both!

So, take a look at the town hall as a way to ensure full penetration of your message.  If information is power, then the town hall is a sure jolt to your leadership efforts.  That makes it...Leader Business. 

Strategery Part I -- Setting the Conditions

While I love tactics, the drive to achieve, battling it out in the arena, I know there is much more to being a leader. Someone on the team has to look over the horizon, anticipate issues, see possible new opportunities, and take the lead in charting the course to the future. That, as our former President once coined, is "Strategery."

Strategery (okay...before you think that I believe that is really a word...I know some of you may know it as strategy) is the sort of longer term, disciplined planning that we cannot discount simply because we are wrapped up in the heat of battle. While strategery is not the exclusive domain of the leader, in fact we need strategic thinkers within our ranks to help push the team to greatness, no leader or team can achieve sustained excellence without it.

We can easily be consumed with short term thinking here in Afghanistan. We certainly have enough to do just executing the work in front of us. To many, life here is a day to day existence. Some just want to come and go. But to be this short-sighted is a recipe for failure. We've got to evolve, incorporate new ideas and lessons learned, and keep improving. We have to build capacity, build for the future. We cannot rest on our past accomplishments nor operate as if we can't get better. We can do all of this...and we must...if we want to achieve our overall purpose here.

So for my team, it's time to roll up our sleeves and envision the future. This strategic, long-range thinking is strategery. I plan to dedicate about 3 days in the weeks ahead to gather with my senior leaders to put together our road-map for the way ahead. As such, I wanted to share some thoughts on this page (and get some of yours) about how to set the conditions for such a planning session.

Before preparing a plan in the military, we conduct what we call -- Mission Analysis. This is a detailed examination of one's current position that enables productive thinking about the future. In simple terms we need to see ourselves, see the enemy, and see the terrain. Some of you may know it as SWOT. Same thing. Strengths and Weaknesses enable us to see ourselves, Opportunities are the terrain around and in front of us, and threats are the enemy. Many of you have been doing mission analysis without knowing it!

Here are the tools we are gathering as part of our Mission Analysis in addition to conducting a detailed SWOT assessment of our organization:

-- Customer surveys. We need to know what we are doing well...and not so well.
-- Workforce surveys. What do our employees say and what is important to them?
-- Internal After Action Reviews. We have been doing our AARs at all levels of the organization since we ended our Fiscal Year -- looking for things we can sustain and, more importantly, improve.
-- Analysis of the strategic plan of our higher headquarters 1 and 2 levels above us. We are looking for specified tasks (what are we TOLD to do) and implied tasks (what SHOULD we do to accomplish our mission...even if not explicitly stated) that must be addressed in our plan.
-- Assessment of our old strategic plan. What should we keep? What have we accomplished?
-- Analysis of our current mission. What is our workload, budget, personnel situation, etc? What do we need to do to be competitive? What opportunities do we see coming down the road? What needs fixing?

So...we are gathering the tools now. This is the "condition setting" phase of strategery. We're not ready yet to start putting our plans together. But we certainly are getting an idea of what we need to do. These ideas will start to coalesce into groups the more we analyze different areas of our team and our mission. These groups will become the ACTIONS and INITIATIVES that will form the nucleus of our plans. But more on them the next time. We're still doing our analysis. If you are not...why not now? Know that if you are not into strategery, your competition most certainly is. That's always enough to motivate me to climb up the ship's mast and look over the horizon. That's what leaders do. And that's Leader Business.

Still Learning From Failures

I have written often in these pages about the importance of learning from our setbacks. My experience has taught me that we learn infinitely more when we fail than when we succeed. The former pushes us to examine our shortcomings, tighten up our chinstraps, and get back into the arena motivated to improve. Too often, the latter breeds complacency and a misplaced satisfaction with performance that inhibits growth.

So I have come to appreciate the opportunity to learn that challenges and losses typically present. While I certainly prefer to win, I know that aggressive risk-taking and the willingness to reach high inherently puts us in the position to occasionally come up short. The alternative, playing it safe, staying on the sidelines, being afraid, is simply unacceptable. I say...bring it on.

Certainly there are no shortages of setbacks here in Afghanistan. Everything we do here is difficult. Every construction project seems to present multiple opportunities to learn. Corruption, interruptions to the supply chain, hostile environmental conditions, and a hostile enemy are present on almost every job. And yet, my job is not to make excuses, not to be afraid of failing, but to learn from it, make corrections, get better every day, and keep moving forward.

This is the time in the federal "business cycle" where we always take time to determine how we can improve. Our fiscal year ended on September 30th (Happy New Year to my government friends...and those who partner with us). Thus there is no better time to make an assessment of how we might improve our performance. The grades are in. The challenges are too many to enumerate here. There is no time like the present to learn. And I have no doubt that the learning we will do through our After Action Reviews (AARs) will set us on the course for victory in FY2011.

I also want to celebrate another who learned from failure, my daughter Shelby. You may recall my discussion about her willingness to run for school office -- and fail -- not once but two times. Both times were heartbreaking. Yet that little one never gave up. She did not hesitate to jump back into the arena, this time running for President of her high school freshman class. As her father, I was fearful of her losing again, afraid of seeing her heart broken, and worried about what a third setback might mean to her self-confidence. But that little one is a fighter. She never gives up. She would clearly rather fail, falling forward on her face, than to be afraid and timid, falling backward on her tail!

You guessed it. She won! She learned from her failures, ran a great campaign, and finally experienced the thrill of victory. Am I proud of her? You better believe it. Do I wish I had that sort of short-term memory, where I was more focused on the opportunities ahead than the failures in my rear-view mirror? Definitely.

I have no doubt that my daughter learned more from the two previous setbacks than she would have had she won. That is just in our nature. We take success for granted. We rarely look for opportunities to improve when things go well. It is in those failures that we learn the most, where our AARs have the most meaning, and where improvement is the greatest. I see it every day. And I have watched it from a distance in my little daughter, the President! That's Leader Business!

Celebrate Success!!

Well, it is that time of year again. We finished up our fiscal year with a bang on September 30th, meeting or exceeding all of our milestones. It really is fun to be a part of team that sets the bar high and then does whatever it takes to get over it! We finished the year with total revenue around $1B and countless projects completed for a very satisfied customer base. Wow!

And as we have done in years past, we celebrated! We had a "New Year's Celebration" on October 1st. It was a great chance to review our accomplishments and to recognize some great people who had made success possible. This year, despite being spread over 3 states in dozens of project offices, I think we were able to leverage technology to connect most of the staff. We presented awards to a couple dozen people who worked hard to meet our end of year goals. We had cake and confetti and party favors and music. It was fun. And then I sent people home early. Yea!

The point is, we do need to take time to celebrate. We need to recognize our heroes. We have to reflect on our accomplishments and the great people who make success possible. It meant a lot to our staff and...it meant a lot to me!

Now, the year is not complete. We still need to complete our After Action Reviews (AARs) and document our lessons learned. We are planning on taking key leaders away for strategic discussions in a few weeks and this learning must be factored into our future plans. Regardless of how good we think we are, we can always improve!

So are you celebrating victories with your team? Do you let loose every once in a while to ensure that your teammates know how much you value what they do? Are you having fun? I hope so. That's Leader Business!

Please take some time to visit this month's Leadership Carnival, hosted by Mountain State University. They have gathered together a number of great posts on leadership and I was happy to see them include my discussion on "INTERNS" as part of their collection. Please check them out!

Dealing with Failure

I have written often about failure. I believe it is important that we each push ourselves, take on more and more risk, and experience life (personally and professionally) out on the edge. In doing so, sometimes we will fail. But what we learn from these failures is what defines us, what propels us to even greater heights. Learning from failure is key to the growth and development of any leader.

My daughter sure learned this hard lesson this week. She put herself in the arena and ran a great campaign for her middle school's vice president. She worked hard for weeks on her campaign and gave a great speech in front of the entire school. But she lost. Heartbreaking for her, pretty rough on her campaign manager Dad.

So, we had a talk about failure. We talked about the failures of Abraham Lincoln. We pondered the implications of a man who ran for state legislature and lost; who ran for Congress and was defeated; who ran for the US Senate not once but two times. We talked about a man who lost plenty of elections before he finally won some and ultimately was elected to become the United States President in 1860.

More importantly, we talked about learning from our failures. We discussed how each time Lincoln failed, he jumped right back into the arena and found a way to keep advancing. When Lincoln was defeated for nomination for Congress in 1843, he established his own law practice and ultimately was elected in 1846. When he was defeated for US Senator in 1854, he turned around and got elected to the Illinois state legislature. Lincoln never quit, never stopped advancing, kept learning, and took two steps forward for every step backward.

My daughter (and her campaign manager Dad) are learning again that it is not what happens to you that defines who you are. Rather it is how you respond to it. As with Lincoln, I encouraged my baby to not give up. If she cannot serve as Vice President, she should still be a part of the student council. She should stay engaged and continue to be an active part of the school leadership team. She should keep her head up, congratulate her opponent, and demonstrate to the school that she is a person of character, even when things don't go her way.

We also used this as a chance to do an After Action Review (AAR). We both agreed there were things that she (we!) could have done better. Learning can be so powerful when we open ourselves to honest assessment and focused criticism. I am confident that these are lessons she can apply when she runs for office again.

This little one is not finished growing. She is a trooper who I know will find a way to turn this failure into something good. But she tried. She knew it would be difficult to defeat her opponent and yet she put herself in the arena. She reached high knowing that with great risk comes great rewards. And now, despite her failure, she is better and stronger than she would have been had she played it safe and stayed on the sidelines. I am so proud of her!!

That's my girl. And that's...Leader Business!

Learning from Failure

Have you ever found yourself too busy "fighting your tail off" that you can't take a few minutes to save your tail from falling off? This is the challenge we all face. How do we stop the execution train long enough to do the maintenance necessary to keep the train rolling? How do we learn as part of routine operations and turn failure into future success?

In the military we call them After Action Reviews, or AARs. These are the brief sessions that focus on what is going well (and should be sustained and formally incorporated into business processes) and what is not going well (and should be improved). They are non-threatening, rankless examinations that lead to continuous improvement. AARs are how good units learn from failure.

This week, my team and I are conducting an AAR regarding a project we've been struggling with for several years. We finally broke through a major milestone. Time to celebrate -- you bet. But before we get too full of ourselves, we need to ensure that we look at how we can do better. And we can always do better. I know that within my organization there were mistakes and missteps, failures to communicate, and policy and process issues that must be addressed to prevent future shortcomings.

I talked in a previous post about people who struggle answering the question in job interviews about their greatest failure. People who regularly conduct AARs have no such difficulty! They realize that they can do better, that perfection is the goal, that anything short of perfection is a degree of failure that demands improvement! This is not about Zero Defects but Infinite possibilities! There is always another level to which we should aspire.

So what do you need to be AARing? Have you reached a project milestone, completed an important event, or finished a critical component of your schedule? Would you do well to include AARs at the end of each day...or week? If so, get going! Make AARs a part of your routine. Learn from your failure -- in the way that has enabled so much of the success of our military.

That's Leader Business.

P.S. For details on the conduct of AARs, see the LB Newsletter on this topic. Drop me a note about any recent AAR successes...or let me know how I can help you turn your failures into future success with more information about After Action Reviews. Hooah!

My Greatest Failure

I have been conducting a number of job interviews lately for senior leaders in my organization. One of the questions I use frequently is, "What is your greatest failure, and why?" I am interested in seeing how candidates think by identifying where they came up short, and what they learned from it. I'm looking for risk takers and people who understand that failure is so often an opportunity to learn and grow.

What I have been hearing far too frequently is something like this: "Wow...I didn't see that coming. I don't know that I've ever really failed at anything. I'm not sure how I'd answer that."

I have a big problem with this answer. Are they suggesting that they've never taken on a major challenge with significant risk? Do they think that they have performed as well as they can...every time, that there is not another level of performance. Do they really think that they can do no better? Are they not committed to constant improvement and continuous learning? Have they never put themselves in difficult positions or taken on big projects, some of which inevitably come up short?

I'd have no problem answering this problem. I've made plenty of mistakes. I've failed more often than I likely would have time to address were I asked this question. I'm not perfect. Ask my bosses, my subordinates, my family! I've had plenty of opportunities to learn from my shortcomings.

I've hired someone that I later regretted. I failed to keep superiors informed of looming problems -- that they later learned of from someone else. I failed to recognize excellence in my subordinates when they did well. I did not anticipate problems. I did not complete a mission on time, on budget, or with the quality that was expected of me. I have aimed high...and landed low!

Shall I go on? I have failed plenty. But I believe that each of these was an opportunity to learn. I'm better now because of these personal and professional setbacks. I have increased my leadership muscle density through multiple repetitions of trial and error. And now...I'm bigger, stronger, faster than I might have been had I never failed!

So how would you answer this question? If you think you've never failed, are you taking on big enough challenges? And if you are, either personally or as an organization, are you taking the time to learn (see After Action Reviews -- AARs), to identify how you can take your performance to the next level? Are you lifting heavy enough weights to take your leadership to the point of failure?

No leader should struggle identifying where they have came up short. It is clear that whether personally or professionally, failure is the seed of future greatness. That makes it Leader Business.

After Action Reviews

Does your organization have a mechanism to honestly assess mission completion in a way that provides the sort of feedback that we all need to grow? OK...so when was your last session? If you can't remember (don't worry...you are not alone) then perhaps you might want to consider the Army approach to learning.

In the Air Force they are called debriefs. Some of you may know of them as huddles, close-outs, or post-game film analysis. In the Army they are know as After Action Reviews or AARs. They are no-hold's barred reviews of what happened and why. They capture what went well (and should be sustained) and what did not go well (and should be improved). They are rank-less, honest accountability sessions that lead to continuous improvement. Best practices are identified and shared. Shortcomings are identified and corrected on the spot.

They are a beautiful thing to behold. I know of no better mechanism of forcing growth in a team. Done correctly and promptly (after mission, milestone, or activity completion), they allow lessons to be learned and applied immediately to future operations. It took the military a little time to adjust the culture (post-Vietnam) to make AARs part of the military business processes but you can see them being done, at all levels, across the Army every day.

Are AARs part of your culture? If not, you may want to steal some of the details from my Leader Business newsletter on this subject (Leader Business, June 2007). And if you are doing AARs, and have some comments to share, let me hear from you.

AARs are a critical component of organizational and personal learning. And learning...is Leader Business!