October 24, 2013
Performance and Transparency - 2gether 4ever
Here are their store performance measures prominently displayed.
Not a high-tech solution, but every measure has its place and metrics.
- Looks at friendly customer service.
- Tracks speed of checkout.
- Measures accuracy of transactions.
This lines up well with the management adage that "you can't manage what you don't measure."
Some pointers:
- Identify, collaboratively, your key drivers of performance
- Determine whether/how you can measure them efficiently (i.e. qualitatively, quantitatively)
- Set realistic, stretch targets for the organization
- Communicate the goals and measures, 360 degrees
- Regularly capture the measures and make the metrics transparent
- Recognize and reward success and course correct when necessary
- Reevaluate measures and goals over time to ensure they are still relevant
Wash, rinse, repeat for continuous improvement. ;-)
(Source Photo: Dannielle Blumenthal)
April 7, 2013
The Great Big Apple Donut
In all seriousness though, the planned Apple HQs is so cool--I love it!
Bloomberg BusinessWeek (4 April 2013) has a terrific article about this awesome design project.
Some of the facts about this planned facility:
- Houses 12,000 employees
- Has 4 concentric rings.
- 2.8 million square feet (2/3 the size of the Pentagon)
- 176 acres of trees, including the vast courtyard in the center which will have apricot, olive, and apple orchards.
- 40-foot high walls of concave glass
- 700,000 square feet of solar panels (enough to power 4,000 homes)
- Climate-responsive technology such as window treatments that automatically open and close
- Costs about $5 billion (1.1 billion more than the new World Trade Center)
- Move in expected 2016
- Just 2 entry roads
- 4-story underground garage
- 2 R&D labs
- Fitness center
While some think that this building is vanity, I think it is a work of art, and perfectly suits the innovativeness nature of the company.
Apple's HQS is a reflection of itself, not just another building. The beautiful, sleek, and high-tech building melds with the company's design philosophy and vision for great consumer products.
Just like Apple's unique positioning in being able to integrate hardware and software solutions for their customers, their new HQS is a unification of their physical work environment with their internal vision for themselves as a company and the amazing products they put out.
Unlike some organizations which are foolishly tearing down all their walls and working as if they in sitting in Starbucks, Apple understands how to marry the need for a social and collaborative work environment with a proper and respectful functional space.
Apple's building will be beautiful and functional just like their computing devices...and they remain true to themselves and us. ;-)
(Source Photo: here with Attribution to Cupertino Government)
The Great Big Apple Donut
April 4, 2013
Difficult Employees x 7
- Challengers--employees that are oppositional; they resent authority, are disrespectful and confrontational.
- Clingers--people who are overly dependent; they are uncertain about what to do, fearful of making a mistake, withhold their opinions and may harbor deep resentments.
- Drama Queens/Kings--these folks crave attention; they can be found spreading gossip and rumors and making dramatic pronouncements both professional and personal.
- Loners--people who like to be left alone; they tend to hover over their computers and avoid personal interactions.
- Power Grabbers--staff that tend to get into power struggles with their boss; they ignore instructions and resist direction.
- Slackers--those who don't do the work they are supposed to do; they tend to linger on break, calls, or the Internet or be out of the office altogether.
- Space Cadets--employees whose minds and discussion always seem to be in la-la-land; they tend to be off topic and impractical.
It should never be about the manager and the employee, but rather about the results and the outcomes. Keep it objective, be empathetic, document the issues, and work in earnest with the person to improve (where possible).
Difficult employees are not evil characters (or villains) like in the James Bond movies, but rather humans being that need inspiration, collaboration, guidance, feedback, and occasionally when appropriate, a change in venue--where a square peg can fit in a square hole. ;-)
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Difficult Employees x 7
January 19, 2013
Innovation Made Easy
It's never easy to do something new, we all have to crawl before we can walk--but we can foster an organizational environment that promotes innovation, sharing, collaboration, transparency, and teamwork rather than one based on fear, bullying, intimidation, and punishment. ;-)
Innovation Made Easy
January 13, 2013
You Can Better The World
It looks a lot like Twitter but is focused on ideas to better the world.
Every Betterific starts under the heading of "Wouldn't it be better if" and you fill in the rest.
Whether you have ideas for improving products, companies, policies, or even the way we treat each other--this is a great way to get your ideas out there.
You also add tags (metadata) to make the ideas more easily searchable by others.
Like Twitter you can follow topics or other innovative people, friends, and family members.
A great feature is that you can actually vote--thumbs up or down--for the ideas, and through crowdsourcing great ideas can rise to the top.
There is also a bar at the top where you can look up better ideas by search term--so individuals, organizations, or brands can harvest this information and hopefully act on them.
One of the featured Betterifics when you sign in online is from someone who suggested that toilet seats come with a pedal lift lid (like a garbage can)--being a little germophobic myself, I vote definitely yes to this one!
I hope this type of app catches on so we can all innovate and get our ideas out there simply and clearly.
This has the potential to become a tremendous archive for great ideas that can be accessed, prioritized and most importantly implemented--so we can all really make a difference for the better. ;-)
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
You Can Better The World
At The Speed Of Innovation
At The Speed Of Innovation
December 12, 2012
Lessons Learned on IT Customer Service and Team Building
You've got to serve the mission, solve problems, take care of your customers, while at the time forming a cohesive, high performing team.
Read here for the full article.
Hope you enjoy!
(Source Photo: here with attribution to Dell Inc.)
Lessons Learned on IT Customer Service and Team Building
November 18, 2012
When All Is Not Green
Are their programs successful or not, is everything okay on their staff, will they--without fudging the numbers--meet their performance goals and targets (if they have any), and so on.
People are afraid if they made a mistake or something isn't working as intended that they will be in trouble.
Maybe they will be yelled at, lose authority and power, be sidelined, demoted, or even fired; and their organizations may be downsized, outsourced, consolidated with another, or outright eliminated.
So people hide the facts and the truth--as if, what they don't know, can't harm me.
So everything appears copasetic in organization-land!
But the truth is we need a solid guidepost to know where we are going, which paths are safe, and which are fraught with danger--and that is anchored in open and honest communication.
There is a great story about this in Bloomberg BusinessWeek (15 November 2012) about how in 2006, when ex-Boeing executive, Alan Mulally took over as CEO of Ford--and Ford was bleeding red ink, facing their largest loss for automobiles in history of $17 billion, that at the executive Thursday morning meetings, the performance scorecard for their initiatives "was a sea of green."
Here the company is bordering on financial collapse, but the executives are reporting--all clear!
The story goes that Mark Fields, head of Ford's North American business stepped up and showed the first red revealing a problem with a problem tailgate latch on their new Edge SVU that would halt production.
With the room filled with tension, Alan Mulally rather than get mad and castigate or punish the executive, what did he do--he clapped!
Mulally said: "Great visibility. Is there anything we can do to help you?"
And what ultimately happened to Mark Fields, the executive who told the truth about problems in his area of responsibility?
Last month, "Ford's board elevated him to chief operating officer," which analysts read as a sign that he will be the next CEO when Mulally is supposed to retire at the end of 2014.
The bottom line is that we cannot fix problems if we can't identify them and face up to them with our people.
While we need good data and sound analysis to identify problems in the organization, problems will remain illusive without the trust, candor, and teamwork to ultimately come to terms with them and solve them.
I love this story about Ford and think it is a model for us in leadership, communication, and performance management. ;-)
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
When All Is Not Green
August 31, 2012
Can a Computer Run the Economy?
For a long time, we have seen political infighting and finger-pointing stall progress on creating jobs, balancing trade, taming the deficits, and sparking innovation.
But what if we somehow took out the quest for power and influence from navigating our prosperity?
In politics, unfortunately no one seems to want to give the other side the upper hand--a political win with voters or a leg-up on with their platform.
But through the disciplines of economics, finance, organizational behavior, industrial psychology, sociology, geopolitics, and more--can we program a computer to steer the economy using facts rather than fighting and fear?
Every day, we need to make decisions, big and small, on everything from interests rates, tax rates, borrowing, defense spending, entitlements, pricing strategies, regulating critical industries, trade pacts, and more.
Left in the hands of politicians, we inject personal biases and even hatreds, powerplays, band-standing, bickering, and "pork-barrel" decision making, rather than rational acting based on analysis of alternatives, cost-benefits, risk management, and underlying ethics.
We thumb our noises (rightfully) at global actors on the political stages, saying who is rational and who is perhaps just plain crazy enough to hit "the button."
But back here at home, we can argue about whether or not the button of economic destructionism has already been hit with the clock ticking down as the national deficit spirals upward, education scores plummet, and jobs are lost overseas?
Bloomberg BusinessWeek (30 August 2012) suggests using gaming as a way to get past the political infighting and instead focus on small (diverse) groups to make unambiguous trade-off decisions to guide the economy rather than "get reelected"--the results pleasantly were cooperation and collaboration.
Yes, a game is just a game, but there is lesson that we can learn from this--economic decision-making can be made (more) rationally by rewarding teamwork and compromise, rather than by an all or nothing, fall on your sword, party against party, winner takes no prisoner-politics.
I would suggest that gaming is a good example for how we can improve our economy, but I can see a time coming where "bid data," analytics, artificial intelligence, modeling and simulation, and high-performance computing, takes this a whole lot further--where computers, guided and inspired by people, help us make rational economic choices, thereby trumping decisions by gut, intuition, politics, and subjective whims .
True, computers are programmed by human beings--so won't we just introduce our biases and conflict into the systems we develop and deploy?
The idea here is to filter out those biases using diverse teams of rational decision-makers, working together applying subject matter expertise and best practices and then have the computers learn over time in order to improve performance--this, separate from the desire and process to get votes and get elected.
Running the economy should not be about catering to constituencies, getting and keeping power for power sakes, but rather about rational decision-making for society--where the greatest good is provided to the greatest numbers, where the future takes center stage, where individuals preferences and rights are respected and upheld, and where ethics and morality underpin every decision we make.
The final question is whether we will be ready to course-correct with collaboration and advances in technology to get out of this economic mess before this economic mess gets even more seriously at us?
(Source Photo: here with attribution to Erik Charlton)
Can a Computer Run the Economy?
July 25, 2012
2 Eggs Are Better Than One
Two eggs here, as you can see, are two friends--in it together, working together, putting their heads together, sharing life together.
My father always told me that with that special someone the joys in life are twice the joy, and the sorrow in life is half the sorry--he is a smart man!
When it comes to friendships though, I have learned there are many types of friends and we have different names or references for them:
- Childhood friends--"We go way back."
- Best friends forever--or BFF; often you'll see this on bracelet charms, necklaces, or even t-shirts--this is reserved for your closest buds.
- High school sweethearts--"first comes friends, then comes marriage, and then comes a baby in the baby carriage."
- Confidant friend(s)--these are people we feel we can talk to, connect with, and trust with our personal and emotional secrets. Ummm, don't tell, but...
- Neighbor friends--you live near or next to each other, so might as well bring over some welcome muffins or borrow some sugar--then again, "tall fences, make good neighbors."
- Casual friends--these are friends you keep in touch with "every so often" and share some laughs or have a "cold one" with.
- On again off again friends--people you are friends with one minute and alienated from the next--often an endless cycle--you like somethings about the person and other things drive you mad!
- Work friends --these are associates that you work with day in and out--40, 50, 60 hours a week or more--and who you share work experiences, challenges, projects, and sometimes frustrations with--and don't forget "happy hour".
- Friends with benefits--this is a naughty friendship and is what it sounds like--at your own foolhardy risk!
- Marriage partner and best friends--the most fortunate people are those who find their "beshert"--the one true one that they are destined to be with--and who is not only their life partner, but their soulmate and best friend.
Good luck finding and keeping your friends of all types--these are precious and make life worth living.
(Source Photo: Meme shared with me)
2 Eggs Are Better Than One
July 22, 2012
Changing Organizational Fear To Firepower
But as Senator Grassley has pointed out in the video's description--"the essence of whistle-blowing is reporting problems outside of an employees chain of command." In other words, reporting problems to external oversight authorities like Congress is an important and protected action in exposing shortcomings and addressing potentially serious issues.
The Congressional Research Service provides an overview of The Whistleblower Protection Act (WPA) of 1989--basically, as I understand it, WPA protects federal whistleblowers who report gross agency misconduct (e.g. mismanagement, waste, and abuse) and prohibits threatening or taking retaliatory personnel action. Moreover, the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act (WPEA) was introduced in 2009 to broaden the protections to, I believe, more violations except minor or inadvertent, but this has not yet been passed. Further, the Office of Special Counsel investigates whistleblower complaints.
Unfortunately, as pointed out in The American Thinker, employees have taken the message as "a warning to keep their mouths shut," especially after agents exposed the Fast and Furious failed gun-running operation to Congress in 2011.
An agent quoted in The Washington Guardian states: "The message was unmistakable. Keep your head down and the only way you can report wrongdoing is by going to your chain of command. It was chilling, Orwellian and intimidating. What are you supposed to do if your chain of command is the one you think is involved in the wrongdoing? That was why OSC and IGs were created."
Whether one works in the government or the private sector, actions that are taken as bullying is problematic, not only from the perspective of morale but also in terms of productivity, as pointed out in an article in SelfGrowth called Leadership: Are You a Bully Leader?
"Bully leadership is sharp, authoritative, angry, and feels uncomfortable to those in contact with it...the bully leader bark out orders, threatens consequences and use strong, harsh statements..." as many have clearly come away from with this video.
In a dysfunctional organization where employees are bullied and threatened, the results are devastating to employees and to the vital mission they serve:
- Stifling productivity--employees do not give their all--they "do what needs to be done and that is all. They don't go above and beyond," so productivity declines precipitously.
- Stomping out ideas--since the bully leader "needs to be the one with the great ideas," employees don't share their input--they know to keep it to themselves.
- Squashing effectiveness--bully leaders want to control everything and "lack trust in other people," the result is a negative (and perhaps even a hostile) work environment where motivation, quality, and effectiveness are decimated.
It leads me to wonder, can those who lead by fear become more inspiring figures who empower employees and engender communication, trust, and fairness?
Obviously, changing a dysfunctional organizational culture is probably one of the hardest things to do, because the most fundamental everyday norms and “values” that the organization runs on must be overhauled.
However, it can be done, if top leadership on down is sincere and committed to change. The goals should include things like effective collaboration, delegation, empowerment, and recognition and reward.
This post shouldn’t be seen as a referendum on any one organization, but rather a way forward for all organizations that seek to raise the bar on performance and morale.
Changing Organizational Fear To Firepower
April 8, 2012
Returning From The Brink Of National Suicide
Unfortunately, there has been a downward trend for some time and we saw this recently with everything from confrontations to raising the federal debt ceiling, passing a federal budget, near government shutdowns, and what has now become regular showdowns over every major legislation from healthcare to deficit reduction.
We are a nation with government at the crossroads of neuroticism where situations get treated as virtually unsolvable by oppositional political movements who themselves appear hopeless of genuinely working together.
Harvard Business Review (March 2012) in an article titled "What's Wrong With U.S. Politics," described the "ineffectiveness of America's [current] political system," where instead of opposing sides coming together to craft compromise positions that bring together the best of multiple points of view to find a balanced approach and prudent course for the American people, now instead compromise is seen as surrender, and "the fervor to win too often appears to trump everything else."
While traditionally the source of political parties and politics itself in America is founded in the opposing views of Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton--one who opposed strong central government and the other who favored it, these diametric opposites where a source of national strength, because they strived ultimately to find an almost perfect compromise to whatever ailed the nation.
However, something has profoundly changed--from where "rigorous rivalry between the two political philosophies used to be highly productive" to the current situation of absolutism, where like in July 2011 debt-ceiling crisis, "some politicians even suggested that a government default or shutdown would be less damaging than compromise."
When last August, Standard and Poor took the historically unprecedented step of downgrading U.S. debt from AAA to AA+, they cited "that the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions had weakened."
This should be of dire concern to everyone in this nation, because we all depend on government to solve problems and do what is ultimately right for the people.
One of the suggestions that HBR makes is grounded in the techniques of negotiation, where we facilitate and help each side "not merely split the difference," but also "articulate their highest parties, with an eye toward facilitating the best of best of both over time."
While this is certainly an important element in moving to compromise, there is another core element that is missing and needs to be addressed and that is a mutual respect for all parties and points of view, one where we see ourselves first as one nation, and only second as political parties and positions--in other words, we recognize that our common values and goals obviate the more subtle differences between us.
This coming together as a nation can only happen when there is basic trust between the all sides, so that each knows that the other will not take advantage of them when they wield power, but rather that the views of all will be respected and duly represented in any solution, and moreover that the core beliefs of each will be protected at some fundamental level, even when they are not in power or outvoted.
What this means is that compromise, balance, and fairness prevail over whichever political party resides in power in at the time, and assures each side of the same treatment and protections under the other.
Violating this ultimate balance of power is tantamount to taking the first shot in a situation akin to Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), when each side wields destructive nuclear capability.
With critical decisions coming up again on deficit reduction, federal debt ceiling, and social entitlements and national defense spending, and each side digging in, we are fast approaching the equivalent of a thermonuclear showdown in politics, and it is time for both sides to pull back from the brink of national suicide and to once again reinforce the basic principles of mutual respect and enduring compromise--even when one side, or another, has the upper hand.
As a next step, let each side of the aisle demonstrate true compromise in negotiations with the other to reestablish confidence and trust that neither will be wholly overrun or defeated in the political wrangling and fighting that ensues.
The important question in politics must not be which side will wield power, but who can bring the best leadership to the nation to forge a path of sensibility, balance and mutual respect to any solution.
(Source Photo: here with attribution to Elvert Barnes)
Returning From The Brink Of National Suicide
March 21, 2012
Candy Dish, Come and Get Some
I saw this brilliant piece in the Wall Street Journal (20 March 2012) about building relationships with sibling "rivals", but in my opinion the advice has much broader implications for growing our relationships for how we deal with others in life.
The article describes about how one man sends his brother, with whom he has been fighting with for years, the following story in an email:
"Two men had a stream dividing their properties. One man hired a carpenter to build a fence along the stream, but the carpenter built a bridge by mistake." The brother then wrote, "I'd like to walk over the bridge."
Wow! This is a very powerful story.
We can choose to build walls to separate us or build bridges to close the divide.
This can be applied to so many situations, where building relationships has a genuine chance or can be a lost and forgone opportunity.
In the office, for example, some people choose to put up proverbial walls between themselves and others. They do this by closing their doors, scowling at others, putting up signs that they are having a bad day, or perhaps by literally surrounding themselves with the accoutrements of their office (desks, chairs, appliances, mementos) and sending a message of a clear distance between them and others--almost like they are circling the wagons and no one will get in without getting shot.
While others take a different approach and are busy building bridges between themselves and others. For example, they regularly say good morning and how are you, they have a true open door policy, they may even have a candy dish or other enticements for others to stop by and just talk. They are open to others to share, collaborate and to build relationships.
Thus, just like with the two brothers, the conflict between them can turn into a hard and deeply anchored wall that closes all venues or the opposite, a bridge that connects us.
Think about it as building or burning bridges. When dealing with people who are really not deserving of trust, sometimes there is no choice but to separate and "live and let live," but when dealing with those with whom a real relationship is possible and even desirable, then start building those bridges today or at least take a first step and put out that candy dish. ;-)
(Source Photo: Blumenthal)
Candy Dish, Come and Get Some
November 24, 2011
Playing For The Good Of The Team
Good Morning America"s Play of the Day is called "Man Plays Baseball With Himself."
In this incredible video a Japanese Astronaut on the International Space Station throws a ball, runs and picks up a bat and hits the ball he just threw, and then jumps up and catches the ball he just hit.
An impossibility in Earth environment, but a possibility in the low gravity of space.
One lesson then is that nothing is really impossible--given the right circumstances, the impossible becomes possible, so have faith in your abilities and understand that your limitations are not insurmountable.
A second lesson is that while this astronaut shows what's it's like to be literally a one-man team and to succeed; in the real world, there are no one man teams--we depend on each other, whether to play a game of ball or to accomplish things from major projects to minor tasks.
On Thanksgiving, a favorite pastime is watching football and the NFL has been playing on Thanksgiving since at least 1920. In general, there is a huge appreciation of team sports in America, whether football, basketball, soccer, and more.
Pedople on sports teams and in organizational settings who get ahead understand the importance of team and that collaboration and strategy is the key to success and to "winning." Those who don't get alone, end up on the sidelines of the game and of life.
Playing alone, especially in space, may make a great video, but working through a difficult problem with others is even a bigger challenge and feat accomplished.
Getting alone is something we try to instill in people in our society from the earliest of ages, but it does not come easy for everyone. That why we describe people in the organization who don't get alone with others as "not playing nice in the sandbox."
Perhaps, this Thanksgiving, we can appreciate the ability of those who are team players as well as those who may be more individualist, as long as everyone is playing for the good of team.
Playing For The Good Of The Team
November 23, 2011
Where The Biggest Nuts Rise To The Top
According to an article in Mental Floss (November/December 2011) engineers at the Advanced Dynamics Laboratory in Australia in 1996 researched how to mitigate The Muesli Effect, which describes the paradox of how, for example, cereral in boxes tend to separate with the smaller stuff lingering on the bottom and the large chunks rising to the top. This is the opposite of what you'd expect in terms of the larger, heavier pieices falling to the bottom--but they don't.
This is also known as The Brazil Nuts Effect, because the largest nuts (the Brazil Nuts) can rise to the top. While in physics, this may be good, in leadership it is not.
With leadership, the Muesli Effect can led to situations where cut-throat, unethical, workplace operators push their way to the top, on the backs of the masses of hardworking individuals. Unfortunately, these workplace "bullies," may stop at nothing to get ahead, whether it means manipulating the system through nepotism, favoritism, outright descrimination, or political shinanigans. They may lie, steal, kiss up, or kick down shamelessly disparaging and marginalizing coworkers and staff--solidying their position and personal gain, which unfortunately comes at expense of the organization and it's true mission.
Some really do deserve their fortune by being smarter, more talented, innovative, or hardworking. In other cases, you have those who take unjustifiably and ridiculously disproportionately at the expense of the others (hence the type of movements such as 99% or Occupy currently underway). This corruption of leadership begs the question who have they "brown-nosed," what various schemes (Ponzi or otherwise) have they been running, how many workers have they exploited, suppliers squeezed, partners shafted, and customers and investors have they taken advantage of.
Countless such ingenious leaders (both corporate and individual) rise by being the organizations false prophets" and taking advantage of the "little guy"--some examples whether from Enron, WorldCom, HealthSouth, Tyco, MF Global, and Bernie Madoff are just a few that come to mind. These and other examples can be found as well in government, non-profit, as well as educational institutions.
Interestingly, the Museli Effect occurs when you shake a box vertically. However, if you rock it side-to-side, then you reverse the effect and larger and heavier pieces of chaff fall to the bottom letting the precious kernels rise to the top.
This is similar to organizations, where if you focus on working horizontally across your organization and marketplace--on who you serve, your partners, suppliers, investors, and customers in terms of breaking down barriers, building bridges, and solving customer problems--then the real gems of leadership have the opportunity to shine and rise.
In the age of social networking, information sharing, collaboration, and transparency, the reverse Muesli Effect can help organizations succeed. It is time to stop promoting those leaders who build empires by shaking the organization up and down in silos that are self-serving, and instead move to rewarding those that break down stovepipes to solve problems and add real value.
(Source Photo: here)
Where The Biggest Nuts Rise To The Top
November 16, 2011
Leadership Is Not A One Personality World
According to the author, Steven L. Katz, "Government in particular, attracts, rewards, and promotes people who want to be left alone. As a result we have a government of loners...seen in the scarcity of people with a healthy balance of substantive and social skills who are needed for leadership, management, and bringing projects large and small to completion."
Katz identifies these "loners" as Myers-Briggs ISTJ--Introverted Sensing Thinking and Judging. Moreover, he proposes that we consider "more people who test in the range of Myers-Briggs ENTJ--Extroverted Intuitive Thinking Judging"--to assume the leadership mantle instead.
In other words, Katz has a problem with people who are introverted and sensing. In particular, it seems that the introversion type really has Katz all bent out of shape--since this is what he rails at as the loners in our organizations. What a shame!
Katz is wrong on almost all accounts, except that we need people who can communicate and collaborate and not just in government:
1) Diversity Down The Toilet--Katz only acknowledges two Myers-Briggs Types in our diverse population--ENTJ and ISTJ. He is either unaware of or ignores the other 14 categories of people on the continuum, and he promotes only one type the ENTJ--1/16 of the types of people out there--so much for diversity!
Further, Katz makes the stereotypical and mistaken assumptions that introverts are shy and ineffectual, which as pointed out in Psychology Today in 2009 (quoted in Jobboom) "Not everyone who is shy is introverted, and not everyone who's charismatic and cheerful is extroverted." Further, shy people are 'routinely misunderstood as cold, aloof, or stuck up."
Katz missed the point as taught at OPM's Federal Executive Institute that all of us have something to learn, teach, and a preferred pathway to excellence.
2) By the Numbers--Contrary to Katz's implication that introverts are a small and social inept portion of population that should shunned, a report in USA Today in 2009 states that '50% of baby boomers are introverts" as are 38% of those born after 1981 with the onset on the modern computing age, Internet, and social media. Interestingly enough, Katz is even dissatisfied with these Millennials who according to him: their "dominant form of communication and relationships is online and on cellphones."
Moreover, according to a 2006 article in USA Today quoted on Monster.com, "Introverts are so effective in the workplace, they make up an estimated 40% of executives."
Included in these successful introverts are people like "Bill Gates, Steven Spielberg, Diane Sawyer, Andrea Jung, and Bill Nardelli"--Sorry, Steve!
3) Situational Leadership Is Key--While Katz is busy searching for personality type scapegoats to government problems, he is missing the point that Myers-Briggs is "neither judgmental not pejorative" and instead "helps assess the fit between person and job" (Reference: The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator in Organizations: A Resource Book).
In fact, according to a recent study published in Harvard Business Review (4 October 2010), introverts are not only incredibly effective, but are "the best leaders for proactive employees." Moreover, HBR points out that "Both types of leaders, the extraverts and the introverts, can be equally successful or ineffectual..."
So for example, Introvert leaders (who are "more likely to listen to and process the ideas") tend to be better leaders in a situation with a extroverted team, while extroverted leaders (who "end up doing a lot of the talking") tend to excel with a more introverted one.
However, the ultimate key according to HBR is "to encourage introverted and extraverted behavior in any given situation"--that is to use situational leadership to lead and manage according to the situation at hand, and not as a one personality type fits all world!
Katz is right that communication and collaboration are critical skills, but he is wrong that there is only one personality type that gets us all there.
(Source Photo: here)
Leadership Is Not A One Personality World
November 12, 2011
Dale Carnegie's Advice In The Age of Social Media
Dale Carnegie's Advice In The Age of Social Media
October 29, 2011
PwC Leading Like Idol
PwC Leading Like Idol
June 26, 2011
How Leaders Can Imitate Art
How Leaders Can Imitate Art