Definition

1) A violent or sudden change or disruption; 2) The act or an instance of lifting or rising up, esp. forcibly; 3) An upward displacement of part of the earth’s crust.

Tips

Recognize that basic leadership skills are more important than ever.  Even in our wired world.  Much of what we learned at some distant point no longer applies.  Yet, no matter how quickly decisions must be made and implemented leaders still need to achieve their goals with numbers of very smart people on board and behind them.  There is no way to trick people on this point even if we are all moving more quickly

Be aware that not everyone embraces upheaval.  While leaders may feel that “advances in the industry” are positive, sometimes employees will see new technology as representing a scary skill set not easy for them to acquire.  It may have them conclude their life’s work is worth nothing, because everything they know is no longer valuable or necessary.  They could feel left out in the cold…

Teach people gently that we cannot avoid upheaval.  Rather than have reluctant employees valiantly try to resist change at every turn, recognize their fears and work with them to gently adjust to the coming inevitabilities.  Nothing changes about the imperative for increased speed and productivity.  However, leaders can use approaches that respect differing levels of comfort with upheaval.

Be certain that employees know their value to your business.  Make absolutely certain that those who have difficulty coping with upheaval know how much you value their wisdom and personal contribution.  Reassure them that while technology might alter what they do, they will not have to change everything about how they work.  They can transition over time and remain part of an extraordinary team.

Prepare people to cope with the changes upheaval brings.  For instance, send them for training, at the company’s expense and during working hours well ahead of time to start to prepare for changes.  Buy them cards saying “way to go” every time they attempt to learn a new skill.  Create positive situations to publicly praise these individuals for every step they take to make progress.

Appoint the reluctant as “process coaches” to assist others.  Encourage these individuals to work with the staff to ensure that technology changes, for example, do not become a substitute for a “personal touch”.  Use their gifts to balance “high tech with high touch”.  Let everyone know you need more than ever the attitudes and motives of all kinds of employees to succeed in a climate of upheaval.

Balance sets of apparently competing scales.  For example, the need to be “in control” while staying receptive – or, the impetus to be quick to decide and yet reflective.  Like a true paradox, both sides demand equal attention by causing a constant push-pull between these polarized priorities.  That is why no one specific leadership style can any longer be uniformly effective.

Apply the most appropriate leadership style to rapidly changing conditions.  If your organization is moving in “web time”, so too will any problems you face!  No matter how great the stress engendered by the “need for speed”, leaders must still take responsibility for slowing down long enough to respond to each individual’s needs, one person at a time.  This “slow down” approach ultimately allows you to go fast.

Questions For Reflection

When in your life have you wounded someone’s soul in the name of progress, even if it was not intentional?  Are there repairs to be made?

What is one immediate action you will take with a ‘resistant’ team member?

How can you harness the wisdom of longer-tenured employees to help you avoid the pitfalls of poor execution of the “need for speed”?

 

 

Definition

1) The study or use of the mechanical arts and sciences; 2) These subjects collectively; 3) Technophile = An enthusiast about new technology.

Tips

Derive technology’s benefits while limiting its negative implications.  When approaching critical technology decisions, soul-inspiring leaders put people ahead of technology by recognizing humans have natural limitations in adapting to advanced technologies.  They defer to the human side of the equation rather than tip the balance always in favour of deriving more cost-saving benefits from technology.

Beware the “productivity paradox” in making IT investments.  Watch out for increasing investments in IT for declining improvements in productivity.  For leaders who pay attention to the “people touch” (while attending to an efficient “computer touch”), the net result is often productivity and profit levels that meet or exceed those of competitors who emphasize technology over people.

Integrate technology and process with great people practices.  Advances in only one side of the equation will never yield the same productivity as a skillful balance between the two.  Even a very slight one percent reduction in process efficiency and a similar reduction in people effectiveness instantly yield an overall four percent reduction in productivity.  You cannot afford to ignore the impact of small issues.

Take care in how you improve front-line productivity.  Research carefully your technology investments.  Make sure they are not only advanced in performing routine transactions, at the expense of providing tangible assistance to employees.  What is deemed “too expensive” to build into requirements may just be the investment that will benefit everyone – customers, the organization, employees.

Realize technology does not replace performance dialogue.  Do not rely on ‘statistics’ generated by your systems, as if they would paint a complete picture of an employee’s overall performance.  Technology should never replace an active and vital performance dialogue, disabling the relationship between employees and management.  Otherwise, you risk the alienation of technology gone awry.

Stay away from an inspection mentality.  While some executives might believe that “employees respect what management inspects”, it can actually have the opposite effect.  It risks to cause employees to disconnect and disengage from anything other than the desire to be seen as perfect.  They “hit the wall”, creating customer-impacting slowdowns where there had been none.

Ensure your treatment of people matches your policies.  If your policies and procedures manual talks about “valued associates” while your application of productivity improvement initiatives feels degrading, employees will obviously fail to respect you.  Their attitude in turn becomes: “Not my problem…customers will simply have to wait a little longer”.  Talk about a backfire!

Test technology decisions for employee and company benefits.  Soul-inspiring leaders always ensure technology is humanizing rather than dehumanizing.  Second, they consider their rationale for investment to ensure balanced outcomes (between people and technology).  Use technology to improve your speed of response to team issues, and watch the difference.  You will see productivity levels soar!

Questions For Reflection

When you have had a bad technology experience, what made it that way, as contrasted with factors that contributed to a positive technology experience?

Does your organization emphasize technology/process or people, or a balance of both?

When you have fallen into technology/people practices traps, and how can you avoid them in future?

 

Definition

1) A devoted follower; 2) A person willing to serve another; 3) A person who serves or attends to the requirements of another.

Tips

Accept that servant leadership is the ultimate leadership.  When leaders are servants to a vision, rather than to themselves or their agenda, it opens up the possibility to attain lofty goals and work in a soul-inspiring setting.  This emphasis shift in a company’s leadership model creates power and authority structures that breed confidence and encourage people.

Avoid being egocentric or self-serving.  Indeed, in many historic acts of leadership that would fit this model, it was not clear the act of leadership itself promised much reward for the one leading.  Consider Martin Luther King Jr. – an oft-cited model of strength.  His utter devotion to the cause and unceasing efforts to change the civil state of an entire race is servant leadership in action.

Articulate the vision’s benefits clearly and engagingly.  Like Martin Luther King Jr., the servant leader has a “dream” – a dream that many can naturally share and then follow into a better future.  There was never much debate, except among King’s enemies, about his right to lead.  He personified the cause.  Nor is there concern about credibility; the servant leader’s acts are pure of intent and selfless.

Come at vision “pure of heart”.  As an organization, ensure that your vision’s very existence does not have unintended negative consequences on the environment or world health.  It is about balancing profits with philanthropy.  The concept is simple: the vision must be balanced with a sense of not being promoted in one’s best interests alone.

Insist that service be demonstrated by all leaders.  Organizations must find ways to ensure that all those endorsed as leaders truly exhibit commitment to the cause.  Leaders must understand the cause is always more important than self-interest.  Wayward leaders, no matter how skilled otherwise, cannot be allowed to destroy achievement of the vision through misaligned behaviour.

Stop tolerating behaviour from leaders contrary to the greater interest.  It is the single biggest organizational risk.  This is why people breathe a huge sigh of relief when senior managers boldly declare that actions incongruent with stated values will not be tolerated.  Terminating those individuals’ employment sends unequivocal signals, while condoning unacceptable practices destroys hearts and shatters morale.

Install leaders who have earned the right to lead.  Only appoint leaders who have demonstrated credibility with those they will be expected to lead.  People desperately want to believe in and trust their leaders.  They admire and seek out qualities like integrity and trust.  Natural leaders in history often rose from the ranks, anointed by followers as inspiring examples – a model for business, too.

Seek out the right attitude.  A leader can possess all the greatest skills in the world, but if not accompanied by the ‘right’ attitude, this individual can wreak tremendous havoc within the organization.  While skills are important, they are not the be-all and end-all.  If you first find leaders with the right attitude, skills can be acquired and taught.  Better yet, find a leader who has both.

Questions For Reflection

Think about your ideal historical leadership figure, and about a a leader whom you admire in your business or professional life.  What most stands out about these people that makes these choices so easy?

Are you generally a “pleaser” or not, and how does your style impact on your ability to lead others?

What does serving others mean to you, and how does thinking of yourself as a servant leader sit with you?

Definition

1) A connection or association; 2) An emotional association between two people; 3) Kinship.

Tips

Notice what has enduring value.  If you have witnessed retirement speeches, do you observe how seldom tasks and assignments figure into parting employees’ remarks?  Hardly.  Rather, people remember the lingering friendships begun through work, and how those relationships will sustain them in their lives.  Meaningful connections (not work) hold a lifelong place in their hearts.

Look for commonality of viewpoints.  Think of two workplace relationships of your own – one positive and one challenging.  Chances are, relationships make all the difference.  Where there are difficulties, we find upset and insufficient relatedness.  Where there are smooth-flowing relationships, we find mutual trust and respect.  Relationships underpin everything we do.

Put relationships first.  Our conduct when entering organizations speaks volumes about personal integrity and dignity.  Because our ability to build solid relationships forms the foundation for all that follows, it impacts directly upon the ways others subsequently listen to and treat us.  We can either enter as bulls in a china shop or we can glide gracefully into new surroundings.

Devote time first to social engagement.  In cultures where relationships are sacred, human connection is recognized as a valued pillar of business success.  Western leaders must examine their learned belief systems if they are to survive in the world of cross-cultural commerce.  Our shrinking global village (happily) insists North American leaders accede to alternative forms of business wisdom.

Treat people as professionals.  Unlike cattle, we should not need to continuously prod them.  To focus on task is for us to focus on that which should be a given in performing the job.  Relationship-building is the means to leveraging results.  It is integral to and not separate from goal attainment – unlike the belief systems evidenced by singularly task-focused managers.

Use relationship-building to attain goals.  Or, do you believe relationships result from successfully completing work?  In some ways, it is a chicken-and-egg scenario.  While it is certainly possible to achieve results without relationships, we suggest that by team building first, results will naturally ensue.  In other words, authentic team spirit derives from developing true relationships first.

Create connections that honour others.  Perhaps intuitively, soul-inspiring leaders recognize the “oneness” of humanity.  Realizing we are profoundly interconnected, they see themselves as one with – not separate from – their followers.  Neither independent in Lone Ranger fashion, nor dependent in dysfunctional ways, they achieve results by interdependently collaborating with others.

Create deep belonging.  Soul-inspiring leaders build relationships based on true partnership, rather than mouthing “we’re one big, happy family” platitudes while employees feel alone and forgotten in the overarching quest for results above all else.  They know it takes some leadership courage to depend for their results on relatedness rather than employment contracts.

Questions For Reflection

What percentage of your typical workday do you devote to tasks versus relationships, and would you change your focus in any way?

Can you say something personal about each of your direct reports?  If not, how can you make a concerted effort to develop such a relationship with each person?

What if you considered every interaction with the people you work with to be your last?  How would that perspective change the quality of your relationships?

 

Definition

1) A sentence worded or expressed to seek information; 2) A matter to be discussed or decided on; 3) A problem requiring an answer or solution.

Tips

Stop listening to the incessant chatter inside your head.  It results in missing most of what happens in conversations.  Rather than ask, we tell.  Instead of being interested in others, we are more amused by how interesting we are.  Rather than listen, we prepare our responses while others talk.  Try spending more time listening than talking!  Listening is a critical skill that must be developed.

Demonstrate genuine interest in what others have to say.  True leaders make others feel special.  They invite people to lower their defenses.  With an unmistakable desire to get to know the real you, they actively seek to find out what you value, believe, need and want.  Realizing all of us fear rejection and hope for acceptance, they look for opportunities to make colleagues feel treasured.

Ask what you can do for others.  Profoundly committed to making a difference in people’s work lives, soul-inspiring leaders continuously ask: “How can we do things better for you – make it a better company, live up to your expectations, or anything else you need?”  Standing for transformation of the workplace, they will stop at almost nothing to act on what they learn.  That is dedication.

Ask more questions than give answers.  In fact, the fewer answers you have, the better! “Being in charge” does not equate to “being in the know” – a fallacy the myth of the mighty would have us believe.  The best way to develop answers is to seek input and counsel from the many rather than the few.  Real leaders ask questions in order to bring forth others’ innate wisdom.

Avoid asking questions with the correct answer in mind.  Stop asking questions as the expert; start asking without having preconceived opinions.  It is the distinction between asking questions to obtain data versus to unearth personal needs.  Interrogation yields uncomfortable justifications while open-ended listening offers authentic clues about others’ motivation and removes barriers.  Avoid “gotcha” questions.

Respect differences by asking non-aggressive questions.  Summarize what is being said, check understanding and validate the feelings being expressed.  Instead of asking why, use open-ended questions (what, where, when, who, how).  Become comfortable with silence – it is a powerful conversational tool.  It takes far greater leadership courage to step back rather than impose your world on others’.

Seek to understand.  It results in being listened to.  Knowing they will be given ample air time, employees no longer compete for your attention.  Listening without interjecting gains more information.  Deep listening wins trust.  Organizations cannot afford not to listen, given how desperately they need each and every employee’s creativity and initiative.

Open doors to exploration, discovery and insight.  How tremendously uplifting could our exchanges be if we listened with a generosity that dignifies the individual?  What extraordinary learning could be unleashed if we asked meaningful questions that promote self-actualization?  All is possible when we mine team members’ innate wisdom, for asking questions in this way leads to far richer results.

Questions For Reflection

How interested are you, as far as approaching conversations with a genuine desire to understand people better?

What do you notice about others`reactions to your questions in terms of body language, facial expression and other clues (are they defensive or not)?

What factors support or detract from your listening, and what actions can you take to listen at deeper levels?

 

Definition

1) Strong barely controllable emotion; 2) A strong enthusiasm; 3) A person or thing arousing this.

Tips

Witness those who demonstrate true passion for what they do.  It is a very different energy from that shown by those who are simply “at work”.  In the latter situation, passion and its associated energy is replaced with passive acceptance of the assigned task.  It is unfortunate when passion comes from activities outside of work (e.g., personal causes, hobbies) – given the amount of time people spend working.

Learn to diagnose the level of passion in your organization.  Passion is a form of energy, and we can pick up so much about the energy “atmosphere” in a company just by paying attention to our feelings as we look about public places like lobbies and reception areas, as well as by observing people’s informal interactions.  Contrast in your own mind staid workplaces you have visited with those alive with energy.

Tap into people’s energy potential.  Soul-inspiring leaders possess a unique ability to draw out potential from stakeholders, employees and customers alike.  This elusive quality distinguishes almost boundless opportunity from the constrained thinking that inhibits people, eliciting only a portion of their energy.  It is the difference between being “at work” and “working at” something.

Notice your impact on employees’ souls.  Expecting people to speak and behave in hushed tones drains their life force.  It crushes spirits and turns human beings into walking automatons.  Inviting passion makes people come alive and has them stride about with unbridled energy and purpose.  Where would you rather spend the half of your life that you are working?

Encourage passionate performance and be a winning organization.  Did you ever notice what happens to organizations that create zeal for their products and services among an intensely loyal following of customers?  When this magical mix occurs, financial returns follow and shareholders become passionate advocates for the stock, supporting the company with additional capital flows.  The passion is evident to all.

Restore passion alongside the desire for productivity.  Organizations can no longer count on productivity alone.  If they are to attract and retain talented workers and get the full value of their contribution, they must learn to respect employees’ desire to be passionate about what they do.  Otherwise, they risk not being able to attract sufficient qualified talent to survive.

Unlock an “atomic explosion” of energy.  Soul-inspiring workplaces consistently operate at peak levels, and they reap the rewards that come with embracing passion.  They do not typically pay better or offer extra benefits or more vacation.  These workplaces do not buy passion, since it is not for sale – and cannot be bought. Profitability and people practice are in complete alignment.

Realize passion is not simply a series of how-to steps.  A key ingredient is a leader’s evident passion for the enormous potential of their organization.  It is a feeling that calls forth a genuine emotional response among team members.  The actions required to evoke this response must be felt and transmitted to others based on the leader’s commitment to this ideal.  It is about personal persuasion.

Avoid manipulation of passion.  The outcome of any empty effort will be a cynical and listless workforce devoid of passion, perhaps forever.  While a manipulative effort may yield temporary short-term results, people will quickly see through it.  When they discover the ruse, their reaction will be swift.  Passion is a set of committed ideals put into practice.

Questions For Reflection

How much passion do you feel about your workplace – is it an “atomic explosion” of new ideas, or has your company’s idea reactor been mothballed?

What are you passionate about, and what do you notice about what stokes your passion?

Are you prepared to tolerate a work life that you are not passionate about?  What does this imply?

 

Definition

1) Discarded and antiquated; 2) Going out of use or date; 3) Less developed than formerly.

Tips

Embrace change as a challenge.  Leaders are constantly aware of the need for change and innovation; they embrace it as a challenge.  Prototypical managers, on the other hand, constantly attempt to perpetuate the status quo.  This intrinsic difference matters, particularly when you come to realize most of what we understand about the world of work today is based on obsolete thinking.

Harness change as a competitive advantage.  Do not fall prey to the “Not Invented Here” syndrome – which magically believes competition knocks on everyone’s door but your own.  Continuous change, quality improvement and operational excellence are requirements for every organization nowadays, not simply a select few.  Drop any signs of a tenacious hold on old ways.

Watch out for complacency.  Especially complacency that risks to lull you into a marketplace stupour, reliant on a particular product or service that may have carried your organization in the early years but that could now be overtaken by newer “interlopers”.  Do not allow your very bread and butter to come into risk.  Stay alert and sharp to signs of marketplace drowsiness.

Overcome the human tendency toward the status quo.  While not perfectly correlated to behaviour, most people exhibit innate characteristics such as their handedness.  If you think about performing your morning routine with your opposite hand, you will likely find yourself uncomfortable.  Yet, this need to perform tasks with our “non-preferred hand” is just what organizations are asking more of these days.

Create acceptance of a newly revised version of the status quo.  Mentally we need to move from a model of reliance on stability as giving us comfort to a place where our ability to accept and implement change, with control over how that happens, gives us the comfort and security we need to feel less anxious about change.  Any leader in any position of influence knows the consequences of not keeping up.

Help others master their environment.  Do not promise stability; provide a context in which people can understand and deal with change in a proactive and productive manner.  Honesty about the real state of affairs is ultimately more important than the false sense of security that so often accompanies those who try to shield employees during times of change.  This is what reduces anxiety.

Think in terms of future possibilities rather than past practices.  Soul-inspiring leaders embrace change as a permanent state of hyper-creativity, where they get to use their skills and abilities to create new opportunities, and then lead others to that same view.  So many current models of how work gets done are outdated.  We need to unlearn them.  Begin by acknowledging where your thinking is obsolete.

Questions For Reflection

What makes you anxious about change, and how can you avoid this automatic “fight” or “flight” human response in the future?

What is one immediate and constructive thing you could do to improve your organization’s ability to embrace change constructively?

What are the most potent skills you can use to help others learn to thrive, rather than merely survive, during times of intense change?

 

Definition

1) The process of bringing up or training; 2) Fostering care; 3) Nourish.

Tips

Stop injustices against men and women at work.  It is patently unfair to shelve whole parts of ourselves while at work.  For men, it takes the form of denying their feminine qualities for fear of being branded “unmanly.”  For women, it becomes about squelching so-called masculine traits for fear of being labeled “aggressive.”  Such devaluation has created deep divides between both sexes.

Integrate the workplace.  To heal unhealthy dynamics between men and women at work, environments must move from segregation to integration.  In this new context, men and women would offer their inherent strengths to one another, growing and learning as a result of this valuable exposure.  They would stop trying to be like one another, and instead are themselves.

Face the realities of a global twenty-first century workplace.  This next century will demand that leaders adopt a participative outlook if they are to survive.  This will mean inviting differing viewpoints in making decisions, using cooperative approaches to get work done and generating support by nurturing (not manipulating) others.  Drop false distinctions that create separation between people.

Work from a place of “internal alignment.”  On an individual level, alignment refers to the internal cooperation between our masculine and feminine traits.  We each possess both sets – often in varying proportions, with a preference for one over the other.  To be an effective coach or mentor (leadership roles), we are ideally able to balance both sets of qualities; they work hand in glove.

Nurture for the right reasons.  Never use nurturing as an under-handed way to support longer working hours while doing nothing to reduce inhumane workloads.  Nurturing is not mutually exclusive from getting on with business.  And, if leaders nurture their workforce solely to wrench more output per employee, then this “churn and burn” attitude must be stringently questioned.

Seize the opportunity presented by nurturing team members.  If someone on your team is highly compassionate while achieving results, harness this person’s potential for the benefit of everyone concerned.  Instead of chiding them for being too ‘soft’, learn what makes them so effective.  A soft-yet-strong negotiating style can save companies a significant sum in claims, etc.  It’s honey over vinegar!

Think about what would be nurturing for others.  The vehicle matters not so much as the thought itself.  Whether you bring in donuts for the office, treat people to a special lunch or catered break, buy them tickets to events, weekend getaways, dinner or evening on the town, spa visits or weekend retreats, or give the afternoon to go to the beach, what counts is the spirit behind the action.

Transform your employees’ experience of caring.  Soul-inspiring leaders base their actions in such questions as, “What can I do to make sure these people never forget how much they mean to us?”  Imagine what would be possible in your workplace if you kept that question as a constant guiding motive for your actions, using the resources at your disposal to demonstrate constant care for people.

Questions For Reflection

How do the descriptions of masculine and feminine qualities show up in your workplace and in you?

How could you develop more of those aspects of the masculine or feminine representing your least-preferred style?

When was the last time you did something ‘nurturing’ for your team members and/or yourself?

 

Definition

1) With fully developed powers of body and mind; 2) Adult; 3) Sensible, wise.

Tips

Reject conformity.  Emotional and spiritual maturity is not necessarily about being a rebel.  But it does require a certain comfort with who you are on the inside rather than always worrying about what those around you are thinking, or projecting the consequences of your own behaviour on others because it is too difficult to take responsibility for yourself.

Resolve your past.  Resolving one’s past (family life, upbringing, sibling relationships, past marriages) is first.  For every bad experience there is a positive lesson to take away.  Examine who and what is preventing you from putting the past into perspective and moving toward the future confident and masterful in having forgiven and moved on.

Let go of negative experiences.  Each lesson in life, no matter how hard won, must be seen as only that – a lesson.  And a lesson must be learned.  Once learned, one has a better chance of avoiding repeating those episodes in the future.  Not that there won’t always be issues that arise from time to time.  Rather, it is about not hanging onto the negative experiences of our lives.

Hold up the “mirror of examination” to your own actions.  Soul-inspiring leaders take true responsibility for their impact on others.  They do not feign accountability, all the while making others wrong.  They examine their own limiting beliefs and realize that one finger pointing toward others means three fingers are pointing in their direction.  They consider: “What are those three fingers pointing at in me?”

Get comfortable inside your own skin.  This aspect of emotional and spiritual maturity is about investing time and energy to conquer personal ‘demons’ and thereby actually start to enjoy one’s own company.  By cultivating awareness of their own souls, leaders start to earn the right to be called mature, for they have taken the courageous steps to be at peace with themselves.

Travel courageously inward.  Rather than always wanting to run away from yourself, become your own best friend.  Rather than projecting your ‘stuff’ onto others, own it.  Rather than unquestioningly accepting others’ opinions about how to live your life, go by what is right for you, trusting your inner counsel.  It takes courage to soul search, but reflection also brings reward.

Make yourself happy.  A definition of a full life must include making yourself happy.  By being self-indulgent in this regard (practicing what is called in coaching “extreme self-care”), we put our best foot forward and have enough to give from inside ourselves to make others happy.  When traveling, we put on our oxygen mask first in emergencies to next help other passengers.

Strive toward personal mastery.  For soul-inspiring leaders, maturity is a way of being that continuously asks: “Is this how I want to live my life?  Is this how I want to be treated or treat others?”  All actions are scrutinized to make sure they turn toward, not away from, spirit.  Those who choose immaturity will get what they deserve, as will those who turn toward maturity.

Questions For Reflection

What is present for you about your family and your past that may still be interfering with your success as a fully integrated, mature adult?

To what degree are you comfortable inside your own skin, and what changes would you like to make to this aspect of your maturity?

How do you choose to interpret the notion “extreme self-care” – as self-caring or selfish?  What does that tell you?

Definition

1) Gain knowledge or skill by study, experience or being taught; 2) Become aware of by information or from observation; 3) Acquire or develop a particular ability.

Tips

Agree that good leadership requires some element of confidence.  Confidence, in turn, often derives from a strong ego presence.  When this is balanced with personal insight, empathy and an inclination to learn, ego drives leaders to exude confidence in their vision so others feel compelled and comfortable following.  Willingness to learn counterbalances the ego, keeping it under control.  It avoids unbridled egotism.

Retain a desire to learn.  When there is a loss of desire to continuously improve, the ego runs amok.  Self-assured becomes overly confident and eventually turns to self-importance.  With ego as the driver, over time a leader’s persuasion becomes less personally authentic and more power- or position-centric.  This robs them of the true privilege and power of leadership.

Distinguish between knowledge and data (or information).  Many leaders are confused and dazzled by the amount of information they receive daily about their organizations.  Yet, so much of this information has no real value.  It lacks a context or intent that turns data into knowledge – meaning, clarity about the context or intent with which the information is being collected.  Randomness equals random results.

Act with intent.  Good leaders develop a sense of the issues and immediately seek help to assess options or validate perspectives.  Good leaders encourage everyone, including themselves, to access sources of learning and knowledge.  They do not rely on lower-level information to provide intent or context, and therefore avoid being manipulated by “statistics lies”.

Understand how tasks are really performed.  Leaders must learn to understand the less obvious aspects of how tasks such as transaction processing and service delivery are handled.  It is the difference between knowing how many transactions are being processed per day (information) versus how customers are being treated as these orders are processed (knowledge).

Stay away from exercises to document tacit knowledge.  While we can extract the knowledge (maybe) locked in employees’ heads, we cannot replicate the dedication, judgment and tenacity of a single employee acting in the best interests of the business.  Do not allow so-called knowledge management initiatives to dehumanize your work environment through documentation to eliminate headcount.

Share rather than hoard information.  When information becomes something to control, we move away from a collaborative model of sharing collective wisdom – one that is required to succeed in today’s hypercompetitive world.  Pay attention to the inherent message you are sending about knowledge management; treat it as a collaborative tool to improve intellectual capital.

Generate awareness through organizational learning.  While not generally easily measured, an organization’s ability to correctly diagnose potential opportunities and threats in the environment takes it from good to great.  Combined with ability to execute swiftly, awareness builds a capability called organizational agility (value attained through quality of insight and speed of execution).

Questions For Reflection

When was the last time you focused on learning something completely new, and what was the subject?

What is it like for you to learn (e.g., invigorating, rewarding, challenging, etc.)?

Answer the question: “If I could only completely learn about one thing, it would be…”