Leading Questions

Leadership Q&A - What's On Your Checklist?

My latest Weekly Leader Leadership Q&A column - What's On Your Checklist? - is posted.

This week I'm addressing an issue that I see in many places. It is the issue of staff who tend not to look at the big picture, but rather simply treat their job as a daily checklist to complete.

The antidote is to become an impact leadership business. Focus on the change you want to create, rather than the tasks that need to be created.

Use the Circle of Impact guides to help build awareness and communication to make the transition. If you would like to talk about how, let me know. I'll be glad to help.

The Difference between Facebook and Twitter

Charlie Malouf pointed to this post by Joshua Porter about the difference between Facebook and Twitter.  Porter is applying a basic principle of network theory to the difference.

In general, there are two ways to model human relationships in software. An “asymmetric” model is how Twitter currently works. You can “follow” someone else without them following you back. It’s a one-way relationship that may or may not be mutual.

Facebook, on the other hand, has always used a “symmetric” model, where each time you add someone as a friend they have to add you as a friend as well. This is a two-way relationship, and it is required to have any relationship at all. So as a Facebook user there is always a 1-1 relationship among your friends. Everyone who you have claimed as a friend has also claimed you as a friend.

The difference is significant and why I find Twitter more useful for my purposes.

The difference is between closed and open networks of relationships.

With Facebook, both of you have to agree to be friends. On Twitter, you can follow anyone. If your Facebook network doesn't grow, it could mean that you've exhausted your easily reachable potential FB friends. As a result, everyone in your network, is quite possibly just like you, thinking just like you, reading the same books, websites and having the same perspectives.

On Twitter, there is an obsession with numbers of followers. That is useless if you have no purpose other than to be able to say I have a large following. The key to Twitter is creating influence. Being able to reach beyond your natural network of relationships to influence people is the purpose.

Ron Burt looked at the nature of competition from a network theory perspective in his book Structural Holes. If you are interested in theory, I recommend it. Here's a diagram I created to help me visual Burt's perspective.

What is important to understand is that a closed network becomes a self-congratulatory feedback loop. What binds the group together is a set of shared, unifying values. The potential result is a belief that all that matters is what we know and share together. This is a classic insular community structure. Before the information age emerged, it was possible for this structure to survive because the completitive demands were much less. As my grandfather told me near the end of his life when I asked him what was the most signficant development he had seen in his lifetime. "The radio. It was what told us that there were people living in other places."

Today, close networks suffer from a lack of access to information and opportunities.  Many businesses are failing during this recession because their network of relationships is insufficient. Network scale matters more and more.

Open networks, on the other hand, are constantly reaching out for new relationships that lead to new ways of understanding the world and new opportunities for making a difference.

This leads me back to Twitter. The genius of this platform is that it more perfectly replicates two aspects of human relationships.

The asymmetric nature of human communication is the first. Listen to normal conversation and there is a give and take. And the pattern is of short bits of information shared that help advance the conversation. Blog posts can be interactive, but aren't conversational. Facebook is more like email or writing letter. It takes more time to construct a comment, and responses. This is simply because there is more space to write.  I just responded to two messages at my Facebook page. Both required a brief response, but the impulse is to write more than is really necessary.

The other aspect is the competitive nature of human relationships. I'm not talking about one-upmanship or poltical gamemanship.  Rather, I'm referring to how we seek to influence people with our ideas. This part of human interaction is changing too.

It used to be that trying to influence others meant I spoke in declarative statements that intruded into the listening space of people. It wasn't conversational. It was advertising. Today, the shift to a more conversational mode requires us to listen and respond as we offer our thoughts for influence. The key element in this shift is the importance of asking questions that lead people into a conceptual context that provides them a basis for understanding the ideas that you want to share.  This is where my three conversation guides came from. They simply are the result of lots of conversation built around asking clarify questions.

If we want our influence to expand, we need asymmetrical relationships. We need to know people who know people that we need to know, and who need to know us. Which tool is better? Twitter or Facebook? In my estimation, Twitter.  Why? Well, ask my Four Questions about the platform.

1. What should be the Impact of Twitter? Are follower numbers a measure of impact or simply a strategy for developing a context for influence? There is a current theme resonating in Twitterland that "retweets" are a better indicator of value. A retweet is simply someone reposting a tweet of yours. it is an indicator of influence.

2. Who should I be impacting through the use of Twitter? Isn't the possibilities limitless? After all if you are retweet by Guy Kawasaki, his "sneezer" influence is huge.

3. What opportunities come from growing one's Twitter influence?  Depends on what you want from the experience. Access to information and the creation of a network of relationships that value your ideas. Granted, the connection maybe thin, but if you are recommending a friend's new book, that could be all it takes to make a best seller. If this doesn't make sense, check out Mark Granovetter's "Strength of Weak Ties" concept.

4. What problems must I address in order to make the most of Twitter?  The first one is conceptual on several levels. It is our perception of who we are as influencers or as connectors to influencers. Second, understanding what kind of influence do we want to have? What is the impact that you want to have through your involvement in social media? Why are you participating and contributing? It helps to have a plan or a strategy, and not simply do this for amusement. Third, commit to developing the skills of virtual relationship building.  Fourth, commit to the time that is required to do this well.

As for me, my purpose of Twittering, as well as for writing this blog, is to build Trust and Confidence in my ability to provide leaders the help they need as they go through organizational, professional and personal transitions.  Trust is confidence in the integrity of the person. Confidence is trust in our competency to do what we say we can. Twitter is one of the ways that allows for that impression to lead to the establishment of a relationship of service.

All these social media tools are in their early stages of development.  The next generation must develop the capacity to link the virtual work with the local. To create real collaborative partnerships that utilize the value of social media is the next step. Part of this is technological, and part learning how to adapt our human relationship perceptions to adapt to a changing world. Should be interesting to watch it develop.

The Continuity of the Local

The institutions of society that we trust to provide stability in a time of disruptive change are not providing it. These institutions of business and government, of religion, education and social welfare, seem to lack the capacity to both see what is happening and to adapt to these changes.  What is notable is their inherent lack of ability to see the big picture in contrast to their own self-preservation. I introduced this idea in my previous post on the Three Communities.

What is happening here?

As a global community, we are moving out of a millennium long era of institutional stability, and into an era of transition where strength, progress and continuity is built around small entrepreneurial social movements.

These movements are of people who organize themselves around the opportunities and needs that they see at the local level around the globe. These movements are focused on meeting global needs at a local level. The birth of these movements come from the personal initiative of people who are responding to what they see before them. They are utilizing their network of relationships formed in the virtual world to mobilize people to serve local communities on a local scale.

Here are examples.

• People and their organizations raise money to provide heating oil assistance for cash strapped families.
• A church opens its doors to provide a place for homeless people to get in off the street and have a hot drink and some food on cold, winter days.
• Small loans are made to people who have no collateral yet have a compelling idea for meeting a market need in their community.
• Citizens provide charitable leadership training to local business to help them find ways to manage a down economy.
• Business leaders meet to discover how they can move beyond traditional institutional boundaries to address the need for job creation and social stability.
• Marketing collaboratives form to promote products and services to local ethnic populations.
• For-profit and non-profit health care organizations collaborate to serve the needs of their local community.
• Children from across the United States conduct fund raising projects to build schools and implement water projects in underdeveloped communities around the world.
• People leave their local community of residence and move to a local community that has experienced a natural disaster to help in recovery. Some stay for years, not just weeks or months.

These are just a few examples of many that are happening in local communities everywhere.They are not nice ideas waiting for someone to implement. These are ideas that people are acting on to make a difference.

Continuity between today and tomorrow is not found by waiting for better economic times to return. Instead it is found by developing new relationships between people and organizations that address issues as they exist right now.

Local communities are not at the edge of what matters globally. They are at the core. Global communities are institutional communities. They aren't places where people live. They are highly integrated corporate structures whose influence upon life in local communities is huge.

People live in local communities. They interact with people there, as well as with those in virtual communities and global corporate ones. As a result, for the average person and business owner, our focus needs to be local, where we can have some impact, where we form relationships that enable our local communities to weather the hard storms created at the global level.

If you need help figuring out how to begin to care for your local community, take my three conversation guides and start talking with people.

First, become clear that you and your community is at a transition point. You aren't looking for continuity to preserve the past. You are looking for how you build upon the strengths and values of the past for the future.

Second, identify the issues that you most want to address. Take the Circle of Impact and identify what kind of issue is it. Is it an Idea, Relationship or Organizational Structure issue? Whatever it is, the other two contribute to its resolution. In other words, all problems or opportunities are dynamically related to each of the three dimensions of leadership.

Third, ask the Four Questions. What is the impact you want? Who do you want to impact? What opportunities for the future do you gain through this impact? And, most importantly, what problems that are within your control, must you resolve in order to achieve your impact?

This is how you can begin to address local community. If you need additional help, just ask. There are other ways to get at these issues. Let's talk.

BlogTalkRadio Interview 11amEDT 3/18/09

I'll be interviewed by Wendy Siegel of BlogTalkRadio today at 11:00 EDT/US. The interview will go 45 minutes.

I'll be talking about the Johnny Bunko contest ,my lesson Say Thanks Every Day, and on how the Four Questions that Every Leader Must Ask can be applied by leaders in their businesses and communities. 

You can connect at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/webwendy/2009/03/18/Tribe-Talk-with-Ed-Brenegar .

Changing Jobs? - Four Questions To Ask

Big change. Little change. It's all change.  I was thinking about this after writing yesterday's post on Seth Godin's post Pivots of Change where he shows how little changes can make the difference between success and decline.

I was thinking about this in the context of two friends and colleagues who have lost their executive positions over the past month.  Neither leaving was entirely unexpected. However, when it happens, it is the kind of change that most people dred.

Losing a job is a big change. It is symptomatic of the transitions that we all go through in life. If we are tied to our current position, then a sudden change in employment can be devastating. However, if we look at all that we do as in the process of change, then we are of a mindset to adapt positively to this change.

If you are in a situation where your job situation is in jeopardy, consider answering my Four Questions.

First ask, "What is the impact that I want to have over the next five to ten years?"

What difference do I want to make? What am I passionate about that directs me toward a different arena for employment?

Second question to ask is, "Who do I want to impact?"

If you want to make a difference, what group, business or need to you want to focus on?  Think in terms of markets. You are not marketing to sell them something. Instead, you are acting to influence them by the work you have to offer them.  Who are these people? When you figure this out, then ask, who do I know that can help me to find the people within that group that I need to reach?  Treat this as a systematic process of analysis and then act to reach out to those whom you need to meet.

Third question, ask, "What opportunities do I have right now to make a difference?"

If you cannot identify any opportunities, then more than likely your experience level in this area where you have a passion to make a difference is not sufficient to secure you a job. Look at this realistically. Just because you dream it does not necessarily mean it will come to pass.

If there are opportunities, divide your time between acting on those opportunities and doing the due-diligence to find employment. By engaging in impact-oriented activities while looking for work, you accomplish three things. One, you make a difference in the area that matters to you. Two, you network with people who share a common interest who may provide the connection to the next job. In so doing, you gain experience and potential positive recommendations from people. And three, you don't get trapped in a cycle of self-pity, denial and depression.

Fourth question, "What problems have I created that I must address in order to put me in the best possible position to get the next job."

What kind of problems? 
Financial. Do your best to pay down any debt that you may be caring.

Physical. If you are not in good shape, start working out. The stress of looking for a job is a physical drain upon your health. Get some moderate exercise everyday, just a few minutes, to feel good about yourself. Your potential employers are going to be looking at this, even if they don't say so.

Emotional / Spiritual. Join a support group. In some communities, the local office of the state Employment Security Commission has support groups for out of work executives. Many religious congregations host support groups for men and women under stress. Many professional counselors have support groups for people who work in stressful situations. There is an emotional and a spiritual dimension to how we deal with job change. Take advantage of the opportunity to grow through this transition in life.

Skills. Sign up for courses at your local community college to strengthen or expand your skills. Community colleges have courses that begin all through the year. Enhancing your education and marketable skills is also a demonstration to your next employer of your sincerity to be at your best for them.

Big change. Little change. It is all constant change through a life's many transitions. Stay focused on the difference you want to make and you'll come to see what is required to get where you want to be in the future.

The Four Questions on YouTube

The Four Questions that Every Leader Must Ask is a way of understanding how to deal with the challenges that we are all facing in our lives and businesses. Charles of WuMedia created a video of me talking about the Four Questions.

There are many ways the Four Questions can be utilized.
You can use them for future planning, or for a current assessment of your situation, or as a problem solving tool. Some people use them to focus on what they need to do right now. Focusing on impact or change or making difference will do that to you. To see the future can be highly motivational. The problem with seeing the future is the gap between that vision and where you are right now. The Four Questions help to bring clarity to what you need to do.

The Four Questions is also a very versatile presentation/workshop. I can present them in a small group over lunch, or in a traditional presentation format or as a workshop that is focused on developing a plan of action.  The Four Questions can help you make the transition from where you are to where you want to be. If I can help. please be in touch.

How to make a transition that matters

I've been talking about change as a process of transition for several years.   I'm not sure very many people paid any attention to me, at least until now.  Now, they are seeing what I see, that growth during a recession requires a tremendous amount of energy.  We have to think differently, organize differently, have different expectations for our performance. We have to be open to adapting to the situation as it actually exists.

I was thinking about this while I read Dan Pink's latest posting.  He closes the post by saying,

The bottom line: In a downturn, everything’s up for grabs. More generally, place and time lose a lot of their meaning in an outsourced, automated age.

I'd say that place and time's value changes. They are still important. Here are two examples of what I'm  doing.

1. I've created a presentation built around my Four Questions that can last from about ten minutes to four hours. In that presentation, I use these diagrams to help people think more clearly about their situations. I do a lot of the same things I do in longer projects, just in a shorter timeframe. So there's the time consideration. It means that I've shifted from a focus on a few projects of longer duration to shorter projects. 

2. I've also been talking with people about collaboration in their communities. There's the place consideration.  What I'm offering to do is help them organize a Lessons-in-Leadership like event with my Four Questions presentation on transitions as the keynote. The purpose is to come into a community, bring organizations together, inject some ideas, optimism and networking into a day when many people may be at the office reorganizing their files waiting for the phone to ring.

If everything is up for grabs as Dan suggests, then that means your past assumptions may be your greatest inhibitor to success.

Do you assume that leadership training for non-profits and commercial businesses should be separate?
Do you assume that business training can't be charitable?
Do you assume that your business can get by without an online presence?
Do you assume that you can control your public relations message?
Do you assume that customer relations is primarily about the transaction at the cash register?
Do you assume that online social networks have no place in your business?
Do you assume that all you need to do is cut costs and work harder to get through this recession?

I could go on. The reality is that each of us has to aggressively challenge every notion that we've long held about the business we are in. What are the keys?

1. Relationships last longer than customers.
2. Service is more important than the product.
3. Trust and transparency build loyal guests.
4. Adaptation opens up opportunities.
5. Leadership is in greater demand than ever before, and more absent that ever before.
6. Pricing is flexible.

The time to change is now.  Don't wait a month. If you need help, I'm here. We'll talk you through the diagrams, and help you figure out how you are going to make it. You may have a vision for where you want to be, but without a way to make the step-by-step transition to it, it is just a dream.

Beyond the charts

I received a question that I want to answer here.

Read you about your tools for clarity and connection.

May I ask you a personal question?

The tools are sound yet...what is the next step for you personally? What is the part you play in this scenario. Give the tools and step aside? I read something about you clients?

The form did not require us to talk much about ourselves.

The tools for clarity and connection are The Big 3 charts. 

Leading Through Times of Transition
The Circle of Impact
Four Questions That Every Leader Must Ask

Download here.

These diagrams grew out of conversations I was having with people. I'd have a notepad out, and I'd draw the situations on the page, and then make connections. I didn't see the imagery that you find here at first. A pattern began to arise and that's when I decided to develop the diagrams as tools for helping make complex situations both more simple and dynamic.

By simple, the Three Dimensions of Leadership refer to three main areas that affect us in organizations. Ideas, Relationships and Organizational Structure. The difficulty is thinking about them all at the same time, hence the need to think dynamically.

By dynamically, take any one of the three dimensions, and try to understand the impact of the other two on it. For example, what's the impact of relationships and ideas on organizational structures. If very little, then you need to elevate the role of conversation between people about ideas in the organization as one step toward resolution.

The tools are for conversational purposes. I use them in my work to help clients move more quickly through a process of discovery to a point of decision followed by action.

I've found that the charts have a great power to identify problem areas, and their solutions. If the problems are simple, then the charts identify how to move into action. The charts are intended to accelerate decision-to-action processes. They have helped me considerably to be able to see what the problem of the moment is without referring to the charts at all. This dynamic of thinking about the interaction of ideas, relationships and structure gives those who learn to use it an advantage over those who simply think in less dynamic ways.

The next step
Implied in the question, I'm assuming, is how do I use these in my work. If I'm giving these away for free, how does this come back to me as a benefit?

The more people use my charts, the more they will begin to see situations that need change that are highly complex. This is where I enter the picture. Whether it is with an individual or with an organization. I'm helping with these complex transitional processes.

The Transitions chart simplifies something that is not simple at all. The initial question is: How do I take my organization through a process of change? How do we make these transitions?

This is where my client projects come from. Because the path from one stage to the next is not always easy to identify and even more difficult to accomplish. People hire me to mentor them through these processes.

Think of it in terms of a team of explorers who have only the most rudimentary information about what the future holds. I work with leaders to make these transitions. Let give you three current examples of how this is happening.

1. A rural non-profit healthcare group after twenty five years is in trouble. A long range plan is adopted that includes a new marketing place and a total reconfiguration of the board and organizational by-laws. Two months into the transition the board determines that by the end of the year, they will be broke. Solution: develop a partnership with an organization that can bring needed financial resources into the relationship. End result: Non-profit sells its State license - Certificate of Need to a for-profit regional healthcare business. Non-profit organization becomes a foundation for raising money for indigent care in their county.  The transition means change in my client's conception of their mission, a dramatic change in their organizational structure from service provider to foundation, and the development of a collaborative relationship between two healthy organizations  where before there was only one.

My role was to mentor the leadership through the process and be a catalyst for the board to believe that they could make this transition.

2. A mid-size corporation goes through a C-level and board leadership change. New CEO wants values to become an important part of the company's assets. Initial project develops values statement. Statement written by diverse team including both management and union leadership. HR develops program to inform employees about the rationale and meaning of values statement. After the statement is done, my role shifts into two projects. Corporate leadership team development using the company's values. And, a business unit project that discovers how the values can be utilized to improve policies, procedures and internal communication. These projects are ongoing. The optimum word is "operationalize values." In other words, what behaviors and business processes are required to live up to the values.

3. A 200 year old church with a strong history in its community recognizes that it must become more future focused. Utilizing the Four Questions we slowly shift over a period of two years the congregation's perception of its mission. Churches are social environments that are either focused on the past or the future. If the past, they are like museums of memories, recalling the good days of the past, and finding security and comfort in theological perspectives developed in cultural contexts different than today. A focus on the future is a "missional" approach. This approach asks what is our impact or influence to be. The Four Questions help to identify that big picture, and the three dimensions help to organize how the church will act upon that insight.

Each of these client projects are dramatically different. The one constant in each is the need to find a pathway from where they are to where they want to be. My role is to mentor the leadership through that discovery process so that they know what they need to do.

 The impact of leadership
The last part of the question asks: The form did not require us to talk much about ourselves.

When the charts are used in a conversational setting, we are talking about ourselves. We are doing so in context, not in the abstract. We are dealing with situations as they exist. Brainstorming ideas has its place, as long as it leads to concrete action.

A decade ago I heard a voice while riding horseback in the mountains of Wyoming. That voice said to me: It is time to stop talking about leadership, and start leading.

This essentially means that you and me, if we are to lead, need to take initiative. Initiative is the first step in all leadership. There is no leadership without initiative.

To simply use these charts for conversation purposes is insufficient. They should provide whomever uses them the confidence that they can take action.

Earlier this morning I came across a quote from Seth Godin that I used in a post a couple years ago. He wrote:

Most fast-growing organizations are looking for people who can get stuff done.
There is a fundamental shift in rules from manual-based work (where you follow instructions and an increase in productivity means doing the steps faster) to project-based work (where the instructions are unknown, and visualizing outcomes and then getting things done is what counts.)
And yet, we're still trying to hire people who have shown an ability to follow instructions.

The transitions that we make personally and organizationally are project transitions. Life is now lived as a series of transitional projects. This requires not only personal initiative, but also creativity.  It requires of us a totally different mindset than before. In the post I wrote two years ago, I made the following comment:

Personal initiative is a quality of character that looks for ways to make a difference. This is what I find is at the heart of true leadership. When we take initiative, we are taking responsibility for the outcome of a situation. Step forward, fill the gap, do the right thing, don't wait to be asked, take the lead.  ... Personal initiative is freedom. Freedom to excel in all aspects of your life.

These diagrammatic charts provide us tools for helping us lead. They enhance our ability to think conceptually. They enhance our capacity for meaningful conversations with people that lead to making a difference. And, they help to put the realities of organizational life in context.

If you have questions, ask them. Asking questions is conversation, and if you don't ask, you'll not discover what you need to know. If you found this blog through another blog, subscribe. I'll keep talking about these issues if you keep reading and asking questions. Thank you very much.

Real Life Leadership: The Four Questions helps start the new year

My first Real Life Leadership column for 2009 - 'The Four Questions' helps start the new year - is online.

The Four Questions is a tool to help think clearly about our decisions.  A helpful conversation guide entitled The Four Questions That Every Leader Must Ask. is available here.

In my column, I mention Galba Bright. He was a fine man who had a great impact upon the people who knew him.  He used the Four Questions to great effect in his business. It was through him that I began to see the real, hidden value of asking these questions.  I am very grateful to him, and will always remember him when I work with the Four Questions.

An additional word about their importance.  The Four Questions aren't just for your own analytical process. They are a conversation tool. They are intended as a guide to how to talk with people.

Try this. Gather three people together for lunch. Copy the Four Questions guide off for each of them. Then as you eat your lunch, ask each of the questions. Talk about them. Take notes and end your conversation by asking, "What should we do now?"

Do this and you'll find yourself, like Galba, being able to act more effectively each day. 

I wish you well in the New Year.  Galba, thank you for your life and leadership. Your presence in our world is missed.  May God grant you peace.

You can download a hard copy of my column here.

13 EQ Questions that Every Leader Must Ask - Galba Bright

UPDATE: Here are Galba Bright's four blog posts at Steve Roesler's All Things Workplace blog. Check them out, share them with others. Very good stuff.

13 Questions Every Leader Must Ask, Part I

13 Questions Every Leader Must Ask, Part 2

13 Questions Every Leader Must Ask, Part 3

13 Questions Every Leader Must Ask, Part 4

 

Thanks Steve.

--------

Questions are our guide to wisdom. They are more important than the answers. Your questions should lead to more questions. My friend, Galba Bright, took my Four Questions that Every Leader Must Ask and asked them on a regular basis. At some point his own set of questions emerged and the result is 13 EQ Questions that Every Leader Must Ask. Steve Roesler at All Things Workplace blog asked Galba to guest write a series of post on his 13 questions. You can read the first post here, and the second post here.

Here are the 13 questions. Go read Galba's posts to gain greater depth on his thinking.

1. How do I behave towards the people that I lead?

2. How does my behaviour impact them?

3. Do I behave flexibly?

4. Is my behaviour appropriate?

5. Do I have a “default behaviour”?

6. Do I need to change my behaviour”?

7. What type of change in my behaviour do I need to make?

8. What do I need to unlearn?

9. How will I let go of the behaviours that I need to unlearn?

10. How do I experiment with new types of behaviour?

11. Who will help me?

12. How will I consolidate what I’ve learned?

13. How do I now behave towards the people that I lead/manage?

Thank you Galba for sharing your wisdom, and Steve for inviting him to do so at your blog.