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I
hope you had a great summer! It's time to head back to work, and some
parents are cheering as kids head back to school! As our pace picks
back up again, I have decided to shorten each issue of the Leader Letter.
I am reducing the number of items and reducing the length of each item.
I would sure appreciate your feedback on what you've found most useful
in the first six issues of this newsletter.
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Help to Shape Things to Come |
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As we redesign and shorten up the Leader Letter, we really need your input to rank order what you find most useful and what's less valuable. Please complete our on-line survey at [the survey has been completed - view the results here: www.clemmer.net/newsl/survey0903.shtml]. What's in it for you is a more succinct and relevant Leader Letter – and a chance to win a set of my books and CD.
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Tips, Tools, and Techniques for...
Taking Responsibility for Choices |
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- Identify
common "victim speak" used within your team. This might include blaming
other departments or groups, "we have no time/budget," "'they' won't
let us," "it's not our responsibility," cynical or snide remarks, and
the like. Naming this learned helplessness is the first step to
reducing it.
- Develop
a more "leaderful organization" of Navigators by giving people more
responsibility, involving them in key decisions that affect them,
openly sharing information and the big picture, lots of face-to-face
open dialogue, training and support, identifying barriers or
frustrations and working together to remove them, and the like.
- Challenge,
involve, or problem solve with those people who are making negative
comments and living in Pity City. Managers who let those comments go
(or even worse, join in) allow the naysayers and cynics to set the
organization's emotional tone.
- Brainstorm
a list of issues or changes you and your team need to make in your
organization. Cluster similar ones together until you have no more than
seven clusters or groupings. Identify which ones your team directly
controls, which clusters it can influence, and which clusters or issues
it has no control over. Set action plans to tackle those issues you
directly control. Set priorities and action plans for those things you
can influence and how you will do that. Agree on how you will all let
go of those issues over which you have no control.
- Help
a team member infected with Victimitis by listening and empathizing.
Look for specific things you can analyze, comment on, or reframe their
perception. Focus discussions on solutions and the future, not the
past. If needed, tell them that complaints without solutions are
unproductive and harmful to the team. If they insist on remaining a
victim, you might offer to help them find another job.
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When Team Members Don't Pull Their Weight |
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Within
a few days I received two e-mails asking for help dealing with a team
member who was unmotivated and a loner who doesn't care about the team,
doing the minimum required to get by. In one case the person writing to
me was a peer of the team member. In the other case, he was the
supervisor.
I gave similar advice to both
readers. Both situations called for a similar approach that starts with
a one-on-one conversation about how his behavior is affecting you
and/or the team. Ideally the conversation starts with some kind of link
to original objectives/mandates/goals of the organization or team that
he has bought into in some way. He may need a few concrete and
objective examples of how and where his behavior has hampered progress
or created resentment among team members. Expressing how you feel might
make sense as long as you focus on your own feelings and aren't
judgmental or making sweeping, broad-brush statements.
The
tough part will likely be getting him to acknowledge that there is a
problem. It may take more than one meeting or you may need to leave it
with him for awhile and come back to the conversation again. Once there
is some type of acknowledgement, you'll need to set out some plan or
strategy for making changes, some type of progress indicator(s), and a
follow-up/review process.
The keys to these sorts of conversations are:
- Focus
on the behavior, not the person. This can be a tough one. Avoid words
like "always" and "never" or global statements that raise defensiveness.
- Try to understand why he is behaving this way (without becoming his therapist) and what you or the team can do to support him.
- Try to connect to any personal aspirations or ideals that you know he holds for this work, the team, or the organization.
- Search
for a misalignment problem. Is there a way to get him doing work on the
team or elsewhere in the organization that might better fit his
strengths/interests?
When faced with these kinds of situations, we have three options:
1) Work around this individual and minimize him as an obstacle;
2) Try to move him along or deal with the situation; or
3) Leave this team or remove the individual from the team.
The
second option takes leadership courage and skill. But some people can't
be reached and ultimately there may be no choice but to revert to the
other two options.
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Permission to Reprint: You may reprint any items from the Leader Letter in your own print publication or e-newsletter as long as you include this paragraph:
"Reprinted with permission from the Leader Letter,
Jim Clemmer's free e-newsletter. Jim Clemmer is a bestselling author
and internationally acclaimed keynote speaker, workshop/ retreat
leader, and management team developer on leadership, change, customer
focus, culture, and personal growth. His web site is www.clemmer.net."
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Improvement Points Subscribers' Top Picks for August |
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Improvement Points
are short quotes from one of the articles on our web site that are sent
by e-mail three times per week. Each quote comes with a heading that
corresponds with my core models and frameworks (click here to view those).
Subscribers have the opportunity to click on the title of the article
that the quote was taken from and go read the entire piece. Of the
quotes/articles sent out in August, the three most popular were (you
can click on the article title to read it):
Here's
another comment from an enthusiastic Improvement Points subscriber.
These keep us energized to continue sending out these tips!
"Improvement
Points are great. I'm going on a year educational leave of absence and
didn't want to miss them - which is why I asked you to send them to my
home address. They help me to keep focused on my goals and remind me
that in order to move forward I have to do something every day towards
those goals. Thanks."
- Deb Marshall, St. Catherines, ON, Canada
To sign up for this complimentary service, go to www.clemmer.net/improvement.shtml.
Book Review: The Essential Drucker |
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Too
often people ask "what's new" rather than "what's working." That's why
so many organizations have 'fad-surfed' from one popular wave to
another while wasting time and money. And in the process, they have
"Dilbertized" their workplaces with a "high snicker factor" of cynicism
and resistance to management's next change program. Research continues
to show that one half to two-thirds of initiatives like e-whatever
(commerce, government, business, etc.), technologies like CRM or ERP,
service improvement, Six Sigma, supply-chain management and such, are
failing or have seriously missed their original targets.
That's
why I continue to write and speak about "timeless leadership
principles." We can repackage and rename leadership or management
programs and initiatives. But inevitably we rediscover underlying
themes and approaches that are the enduring keys to success.
That's
also a big reason I have been a Peter Drucker fan since I first began
my management and training career in the mid-seventies. For over 65
years (!), Peter Drucker has been cutting through the rhetoric and
complex formulas to define the core essence of successful management
and leadership. The Essential Drucker is a selection of
twenty-six of his writings on management/leadership, personal
effectiveness, and society. While I think the editors missed a few
essential pieces of his, most of the ones they selected represent his
timeless wisdom.
Here are a few passages that highlight critical truths we need to constantly work at applying to leading ourselves and others:
Success
always makes obsolete the very behavior that achieved it. It always
creates new realities. It always creates, above all, its own and
different problems. Only the fairy tale ends, "they lived happily ever
after." (p. 26)
All
businesses have access to pretty much the same resources. Except for
the rare monopoly situation, the only thing that differentiates one
business from another in any given field is the quality of its
management on all levels. (p. 36)
One
does not "manage people." The task is to lead people. And the goal is
to make productive the specific strengths and knowledge of each
individual. (p. 81)
The starting point has to be what customers consider value. (p. 86)
In
an organization that manages by drives (programs), people either
neglect their job to get on with the current drive, or silently
organize for collective sabotage of the drive to get their work done. (p. 117)
Making the right people decisions is the ultimate means of controlling an organization well. (p. 134)
A
well managed organization is a "dull" organization. The "dramatic"
things in such an organization are basic decisions that make the
future, rather than heroics in mopping up yesterday's mistakes. (p. 237)
The final requirement of effective leadership is to earn trust. (p. 271)
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Coming Events (Public or Open Sessions) |
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Over
95% of my presentations, workshops, or retreats are tailored, in-house
sessions. Below is a rare opportunity to attend a public session.
September 23, 2003 – Winnipeg, Manitoba - Leadership @ the Speed of Change
I am running a one-day, condensed version of our very popular Leadership @ the Speed of Change
workshop. During this intense, fast paced day we'll look at the
integrated approach to sustained personal, team, and organization
effectiveness that I have developed over the last few decades. Copies
of both The Leader's Digest and Growing the Distance along with an extensive application workbook are included. Click here for the full agenda, registration, and other details: www.hradvantedge.com/jim_clemmer.html.
If
you would like to explore having me run this or other sessions in your
organization, please contact Heather at (519) 748-6561 or heather@clemmer.net.
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Please take a few minutes to participate in our Leader Letter survey at www.appforce.net/phpESP/public/survey.php?name=LL0903F. I would sure appreciate your feedback on the first six issues of this newsletter.
I
also welcome conversations exploring how I might help you or your
team/organization with a keynote presentation, management team retreat,
or workshop.
Send me an e-mail at Jim.Clemmer@Clemmer.net or call me directly at (519) 748-5968.
I hope to connect with you again next month!
All the best,
Jim
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| Copyright 2003, Jim Clemmer, The CLEMMER Group |