Ethical Leaders in Action

Treasured readers,

I spent last Friday presenting an ethics seminar to a room full of fire inspectors at the Institute for Building Officials at the University of Minnesota.  We had a lively discussion (banishing my greatest fear: eight hours of silent staring), which included some interesting themes about ongoing improvement and the need to stay sharp.   These folks get paid to “be the expert,” and they diffuse conflicts based on their expertise.  Successful inspectors back that up with lots of homework, and balance confidence with an awareness of their limitations.  The great ones maintain a network of peers and mentors, and rely on people and written resources to come up with the best ways to promote safety and code compliance in their communities.  It takes a lot of ongoing work, some of it teamwork, to “make it look easy.”

(We interrupt this blog post for a shameless commercial message:)

One great opportunity for you to hone your skills and develop both personally and professionally is a program led by Tom Laughlin of Caravela, Inc..  Fundamentals of Effective Leadership is a three-month, cohort-based program suitable for emerging and experienced leaders.  I contribute to this course, as well.   It is a great program (if we do say so ourselves – but so do many alumni), at a very reasonable price. The next course is enrolling now, for a March kickoff.  Check out the Website, or contact Tom for more information.  This is a great way to do something special for yourself – or a team member – in 2012.

 (We now return to our irregularly-scheduled program:)

I’m incredibly fortunate: I spend most of my professional life with people who are committed to ongoing improvement.  Workshops are great, but even better are the cohort-based programs we lead, which bring together people to learn from one another over a period of time.  This is low-tech stuff: a group of people who want to get better, some powerful ideas (old and new), and the time to discuss and apply those ideas in the real world.  It is as ancient as a campfire, and as valuable today as it has been throughout the ages.  I look forward to these sessions every month, with groups ranging from fire departments, to health care leaders, to trade and professional association executives.  The particulars differ, but the practical wisdom of these leaders is remarkably consistent across widely varied leadership contexts.  So is the obvious benefit that participants get from sharing their challenges and solutions with one another.

How do you stay sharp?  Whom do you count on to help you?

A child says thank you for the opportunity to give

Back in ought six (I couldn’t resist), Emy Johnson was looking for a way to teach the power of generosity to her children, ages five and eight. She and her husband Scott wanted to do something different, something special, to connect their family to others beyond their comfortable suburban neighborhood, and to make service a central part of their family’s holiday celebration.

A call to a local food shelf revealed just such an opportunity: while the organization prepared holiday boxes for client families with gifts for their children, those boxes did not include candy canes or other items that might be included in a stocking (or so I’m told). Opportunity sought, opportunity found.

The Johnsons put out the call to neighbors and friends, asking for wrapped candy and assistance in preparing these special care packages. That first year, people came together in the Johnsons’ garage to prepare 350 stockings for children of families in need. A great (if chilly) time was had by all, and the tradition has grown from there. To date, more than 5000 stockings have been stuffed, more than one thousand in 2011 alone. Donations still come from neighbors and friends, along with generous contributions from companies in support of this growing program. The kids’ school classmates designed the stockings this year, and thank-you notes pour in – not just from recipients, but from young participants grateful for the opportunity to share in giving. A program that brings moments of pleasure to children in need, also creates a lasting impression on all who come together to bring it about, children and adults alike.

A vision of generosity and sharing, a growing network of friends, a little persuasion, and a whole lot of execution. 5000 delighted children (and counting), plus practical lessons that will last a lifetime. What can we learn from an example like that as we embark on a brand new year?

This afternoon I’ll be presenting to the Minnesota Recreation and Parks Association Conference 2011, entitles “Back to our Future.”  This is a fascinating group: people who are in essence dedicated to providing services that enhance lives and communities.  At the same time, most members are public employees and all are feeling the obvious economic stresses of our times…

I anticipate a very lively discussion, focused on helping team members to find energy from the unique power of their purpose as park and recs professionals.  I will discuss ELA’s three values for public service:

• Excellent Service
• Sound Stewardship
• Fairness

And work with the assembled participants to adapt that general framework to the specific leadership challenges they face.  I’ll close by discussing employee engagement, adapting the wisdom of Gallup’s Q12 research and program to small, dynamic (and often very frugal) organizations.  The key is to drive engagement – to bring out the best in all members of our teams – in service to our communities.

The old adage (and song) bears truth: The Best Things in Life are Free.  In our workplaces, arguably the most powerful tool we have, our ability to motivate and engage one another in pursuit of a worthy purpose, likewise comes at no cost.  Living up to that standard is not always easy, but I believe that it is nearly always worth the effort.

Please feel free to download or view the presentation slides here:

“For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings.”
- Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of Richard the Second.”

This past week, I learned that a friend and mentor, Christian Bredo Berghoff, passed away in April. Our world is slightly darker without Chris, and I wish to share a bit of what I learned from his words and from his work.

Berghoff liked to describe himself as a peddler. He was also an entrepreneur, executive, and educator. In 1985 he founded Control Products, Inc., and led it to international prominence as a designer and manufacturer of electronic components. (The firm is now an Emerson Climate Technologies company.) Control Products’ sustained success was driven in large part by its founder’s commitment and strategy: he built trust-based relationships on the basis of honorable conduct and faithful performance.

As much as any business leader I have known, Berghoff exhibited ELA’s Virtues of Ethical Leadership: Service, Clarity, Creativity, Competence, and Courage. What we teach (or preach), he practiced, with great success: Control Products succeeded by turning arms-length customers into shared-destiny, strategic allies through uncommmon openness and honesty; by establishing clear, mutual expectations; and by demonstrating the capacities to innovate and execute. With their allies, they created, captured, and shared real commercial value based on trust. Berghoff extended that same commitment to candor and shared success with his employees as well, hiring with great care, investing in his people’s ongoing development, and assuring that the workplace was often a place for fun, as well. He was always “cultivating his farm team,” building relationships with professionals he would hire when the time was right. He was almost as proud of Control Products’ one-hole “golf course” and employee fitness facilities as he was of its customer list or its lab facilities.

Berghoff was a gifted and enthusiastic educator, teaching for many years for the University of Saint Thomas’s Opus College of Business, and presenting to varied audiences, including a couple of Hill Center events. While he regarded his ethical practices as a source of competitive advantage, Berghoff was nonetheless eager to share them with others, advancing the practices of ethical business leadership one class, one audience, one leader at a time. The StarTribune obituary stated simply, “He was a valued business mentor to hundreds of students and colleagues.” I am proud to count myself among them.

I am less proud of a final lesson that Chris taught me, however indirectly. Over the past year, I tried to reach Chris to tell him about Ethical Leaders in Action. When he didn’t respond, I found myself making any number of assumptions. Most were more about me than about him. I now realize that he was quite busy: fighting cancer, caring for his family, participating in his community, and securing the future of his business. Lesson learned, again. I miss him.
CAW

Treasured Readers,

This morning
I had the pleasure of presenting to the Saint Paul Chapter of SCORE, the Service Corps of Retired Executives.  Members are seasoned business people and professionals who share their time and expertise to help emerging business leaders.  In doing so, these volunteers contribute to the vitality of our communities.  They help some individuals quite literally to realize their dreams.  (SCORE consultants also prevent a great many nightmares by pointing out the inevitable blind spots in many a business plan.)

My aim: give these consultants tools and concepts that they, in turn, could use to encourage their clients to seek commercial gains through improved relationships with key stakeholders: employees, customers, vendors, and partners.  My talk really illustrated a core concept of ELA: that ethical leadership builds trust and engagement, which are key drivers of organizational effectiveness.

I shared examples of outstanding employee engagement, and resulting productivity.  We also discussed the importance of
establishing a baseline of mutual expectations for vendor and customer relationships – and then looking for ways to exceed those minimums in some cases through strategic alliances.  In all instances, trust and the practices that promote it are foundational for the commercial benefits of strong stakeholder relationships.

Not surprisingly, the audience was highly receptive.  We had some lively discussion, and even worked together to consider ways that consultants can encourage clients to look at things they aren’t asking about, and may not be eager to consider.  If a client wants to know about a problem with a customer, for example, are we right to shine the light instead on some potential employee problems?  How can we do so constructively, in the course of a brief engagement?  The group concluded that we can, that we should, and that both tact and candor are called for in such situations.

I hope that I taught as much as I learned this morning.

Please feel free to view or click the link to download the slides from that presentation:

Memorial to Robert Baden-Powell, Westminster Abbey

Treasured Readers,

Last week I joined my elder son at the Tomahawk Scout Reservation, where he spent a week surrounded by great natural beauty, learning jokes about bodily functions.  He’s 11 years old; it was heaven.   I slipped our drycleaner an extra fiver to do what she could about the smell of his sleeping bag, and my own tent is now dry, packed, and ready for next year.

He learned more than just how to tell jokes or identify poisonous plants.  As we were driving back, he announced, “Dad, I learned something that I think will be really important.”  

“What was that,” I asked.  I’ll admit that I was a little frightened of what that might be.

“If you want people to work together and do a really good job, yelling at them isn’t a good way to get that.”

He was involved in a fire building contest, and there was some dissent on his team.  The leader’s yelling, he observed, only led to less cooperation.  My son concluded that the best way to persuade someone is to first listen to them,  “to understand why they’re doing what they’re doing, what they want.  Then you can tell them what you think, and after that you can usually work it out.”

“Yelling isn’t respectful; it just makes people angry,”  he continued.  “Even if you don’t convince them, people will work harder if they think you care about them.”

Holy smokes.  This kid was really paying attention.

My profound parental pride notwithstanding, my son discovered on his own, without high-priced training and consulting, one of the key lessons taught by ELA’s (very reasonably priced) training and consulting: ethical persuasion centers on respect, empathy, and then reasoning.  (Yelling rarely advances any such efforts).   He noted that it probably takes practice to get good at persuasion, but that skills in “making people feel good about working together” would be even more useful than building fires or treating snakebites.

Is it too early to recruit volunteers for his Senate campaign?

Strangers are contacting Ethical Leaders in Action to inquire about our services.  The phone rings; emails come in from the Website.  I am not surprised by this, but neither do I take it for granted.  As anyone in business knows, marketing and sales is real work.  So is building an enterprise.  This particular enterprise, ELA, remains an early work in progress less than a year after launch, but progress is most assuredly being made. 

One key factor in that progress has been the work of Tom Laughlin of Caravela, Inc.  I hired Tom as an interim leader in the organization, and for several months he worked to build the basic foundation of ELA as an enterprise, while I focused on seeking and serving clients.   Without that support and assistance, I would still be seeking and serving clients, but fewer would be seeking us out, and our “back office,” as modest as it is, would be less efficient, absorbing more of my precious time.

Tom does leadership development through executive coaching and organizational consulting; we collaborate on some of these projects.  In this case, though, he offered much more than guidance.  He acted as a leader in ELA.  He took action, made decisions, and engaged me in decision-making as appropriate.  Together we cemented the business plan, and then quickly established key sales and marketing efforts, an administrative function, and other processes that we need in order to grow.

Why am I blogging about this?  While I don’t mind extending a well-deserved shout-out to Laughlin and Caravela, I have another point to make.  This collaboration worked primarily because we trusted one another, and the primary driver of that trust was …wait for it…positive, ethical conduct.  I didn’t hire Tom because he is competent and not scuzzy.  I know many competent and non-scuzzy people.  I hired him because he is driven by purpose, and committed to truly honorable conduct.  

I am just as certain – because we have discussed it – that Tom works with ELA because he believes in our mission, shares our values, and wants this enterprise to be successful.   He isn’t in it for the money, and to be clear, at this juncture, ELA can’t pay very well.  Moreover, his interim leadership position ended when Tom approached me to say that his work was done, ahead of schedule and well under budget.  We continue to work together, but that intensive engagement ended – essentially, Tom fired himself – when he concluded that his future efforts would no longer accelerate ELA’s progress.  Talk about earned trust…

On a firm foundation of purpose-driven conduct and trust, we continue to collaborate enormously swiftly and cost-effectively.  Bottom line: this “positive ethics” thing really works!

Note to readers: Also check out my recent blog post on the power of storytelling on LeadershipandCommunity.com.

This week marked our final session with the Metro Fire Chief Officers Association (MFCOA).   We had a rich discussion, looking at some of the core challenges facing both chief and line officers: bringing out the best in our people. 

Central to this discussion was the work of Daniel H. Pink, from his most recent book, Drive.  I rarely find a book filled, cover to cover, with ideas that I am entirely willing to adopt.  This is it.  In it, Pink makes a research-driven argument for the power of intrinsic motivation.  He both explains, and guides us in how to harness, that level of full engagement when people are absorbed by their tasks, committed to shared goals, working great together.   In fact, as I made the quarterly update to the ELA bibliography, Drive was the first book I added.   (Please watch this space for more blogging on that topic.)

As we closed the session, one chief commented that it takes a lot to commit to a monthly meeting, but he was glad he did: we talked about the stuff that otherwise occupies most of his time, and made him more effective.  “We don’t really have problems on the fireground.  This program was all about the other stuff, the stuff that really makes a difference in our department.”   Another agreed, and wanted more.

Feedback like that keeps me going. 

Thanks to MFCOA for sponsoring a great series of discussions, with a remarkable group of public safety leaders.

Please enjoy the slideshow by downloading or viewing here:

I am encouraging many of my client organizations to adopt a Principle of Charitable Interpretation to improve the way their members work together. Here’s a simple statement of such a principle: “When you and I disagree, I will first assume that you are competent and well-intentioned.” This principle provides an important tool for avoiding some conflicts and managing the rest. However, as you might imagine, many people find embracing such a principle to be quite challenging.

The principle itself isn’t novel, and it isn’t rocket science. I learned it in my academic work, where a Principle of Charity is used to govern the way that scholars read and respond to texts. In adapting this principle to our work in organizations, we are in excellent company. “Seek first to understand, and then to be understood” is one of Steven Covey’s Seven Habits. Robert Sutton, in his excellent book, The No Asshole Rule, puts it another way: “Listen like you are wrong; speak like you are right.”
Whatever the formulation, we first assume that our fellows are capable, and seek what’s best for our organization. Then we can discern where we agree, where we disagree, and what we ought to do.

The principle prevents misunderstanding. In one fire department, an oversight by one officer led two firefighters to assume that they were being systematically excluded from a training opportunity. They resented it, and told others. Negative gossip spread. The real root cause: a training captain grabbed the wrong list. He apologized, sincerely, but days (and many testy, inaccurate emails) later than he would have, had the excluded firefighters simply asked what was up. Each gossiper, in turn, could have responded: “That doesn’t seem right. Did you ask what’s up?”

Charitable interpretation is harder to maintain than it would seem, especially for some folks. Old resentments can get in the way, or a deeper fear that we aren’t good enough, and someone is sure to find out. Such insecurities are sure to color one’s perspective, often uncharitably. Some people are more deliberate, maintaining an uncharitable environment for their own political purposes. Most folks, though, seem to go with the flow, whether it is negative or positive.

This principle only works if it is really used. People show wisdom and leadership by embracing a principle of charitable interpretation, and by strongly encouraging others to do the same. Pause, especially when you feel anger rising. Listen and ask questions designed to uncover the truth, not confirm a negative assumption. Respond to the negative gossip from the same constructive perspective. Step up to the plate, and support the organization. Practice, practice, practice.

CAW

In our third of four sessions, we are focusing on some underlying values for public safety organizations:

1. Excellent Public Service
2. Sound Stewardship of Resources
3. Fairness to Employees

We continue to build out this set of values as a resource to aid public leaders in decision-making and to evaluate resource needs and priorities.

We then turn to leading through change, which has become more then norm than the exception in our organizations.  We contrast a more mechanistic view of “interventions” to overcome resistance, to a more holistic view that is more attentive to how organizational cultures work and how we can influence them.

Enjoy the slides – download or view below: