In order to learn leadership, there are three things we need. We need a coach to show us how to improve, a process to follow, and some data to know if we are making progress. The trouble is that in the process of learning to be leaders we rarely get all of these.
Think about learning to play hockey.
You get a coach (have you ever heard of a hockey team without a coach).
You get process (where to position yourself, how to move, what to do in each situation.)
And you get some data (minutes played,plus/minus, shots,penalties, goals.)
Now think about business and the process of leadership and we’re lucky to get any of these.
Two thirds of bosses are lousy so you won’t get much coaching there.
You get very little in terms of personal processes such as how to communicate, motivate, delegate, set a vision etc.
And you don’t get metrics to be able to judge how you’re doing as a leader.
Fundamentally we need to reinvent how we learn leadership to ensure that we get good coaching, useful process and relevant metrics.
Bill Gates said it perfectly with regard to teachers in this recent TED Talk.
Every now and then, conversations with multiple people and different times come together. I was sitting in a meeting yesterday when someone said: “When all you are selling is a commodity, data is the new competitive differentiator.”
We were discussing how to make a business case for some changes to their ERP system. That piled on a conversation I had recently with Mario Laudi about his new firm HireFully and his attempt to help people make better hiring decisions. This added to another conversation with Carmen Jeffrey at i-identify about how hirers normally do reference checks. And then there was Tuesday’s post on People Analytics.
And it hit me. Where’s our data?
If we set out to buy a new machine for the use in production, we make a business case, establish our need for feeds and speeds, rate suppliers against those metrics and when we have actually implemented whatever it is we bought, we then use metrics to evaluate production.
But what about people?
What metrics are we using to determine that we really need someone? What metrics do we use to evaluate potential hires? How do we apply metrics to reference checks? How do we evaluate them when they’re working?
In a world of Six Sigma and Five Nines Reliability, where data is the new competitive tool, what metrics are we using to hire and manage people? Where’s our data?
Ed Veckie of Unified Engineering forwarded a great article about People Analytics. It seems that Google has done it again and has taken a radically different approach to managing people that it has described under the term People Analytics. A blog by John Sullivan at Ere.net describes the approach.
Since people in the knowledge economy are the biggest expense, people management decisions are the most important ones that you can make. Hence the need for people analytics. Other areas of the business use analytics so why not HR? Well HR typically runs on trust and relationships but that isn’t enough anymore.
Two key quotes highlight their goals: “All people decisions at Google are based on data and analytics” The goal is to … “bring the same level of rigor to people-decisions that we do to engineering decisions”
Within Google there is a group called PiLab that “conducts applied experiments within Google to determine the most effective approaches for managing people and maintaining a productive environment (including the type of reward that makes employees the happiest).”
This trend to evidence based management won’t stop. Concepts like People Analytics and Return on People are bound to invade even the world of HR in time.
Are you a Buttinski? I hope so, as everyone needs a Buttinski in his or her life. At this point, you may be wondering what exactly is a Buttinski. Well here goes.
Whether you have employees working for you, friends who call on you for help from time to time, kids who need attention or just someone who is handy for advice, chances are you are a Buttinski. In fact you would probably have to live in a cave to not be a Buttinski.
The thing is, no matter what you do, you are called upon on a frequent basis for help, advice, counselling, problem solving etc. Now when you do this ‘stuff’, what do you call yourself?
Some people call themselves consultants, others mentors, coaches, trainers etc. Unfortunately, all of these words have negative connotations when they are done for a living. So I’ve been looking for a better word to describe this valuable service.
I checked with an online Thesaurus and a few alternates came up. I thought being a Second-Guesser was an apt description, as was Kibitzer and Backseat Driver. You could go with the Latin definition and call yourself an Interjectus Knowitallum. But the one that struck the best chord was Buttinski.
So go forth and opine knowing that you too have joined the ranks of the professional Buttinski. Now if only we could come up with a new term for Leadership.
If you think having a teacher’s pet or the boss’s useless son is bad for the office, wait till you see what happens when there is love in the office. I’m not about to get up on some moralistic high horse here but I think I can prove what others really think about office relationships.
I used to be totally nonchalant about these things, after all, once you’re out of school, where else are you going to find love? In fact at Synamics, in one situation, I went on to foster and encourage an office relationship.
Sometimes I do get wiser though and have come to realize that love in the office isn’t any good for the office.
Proof in point: Survivor. Yes I do love being able to study management and strategy with Survivor. I have now seen every single episode of every year and think it is one of the best shows ever created because you can watch interpersonal dynamics and strategy in the raw.
Whenever two people in Survivor look like they’re about to become a couple, one of them gets voted out. In fact, the surest way to get voted out is to look like you’ve got an unbreakable bond with one particular person.
It’s not just because contestants are threatened by a voting block, it’s because of fairness. Intrinsically, each person wants to think they’re being treated in an equal and fair manner by each other person. (Or in the case of Survivor, an equally unfair manner.)
The existence of another couple in a relationship means that outsiders are cut out of an equal chance for being treated in an unbiased manner.The people in the relationship will naturally favour each other to the detriment of those outside the relationship.
And so it is in the office. Even where couples aren’t in the same department, if they have to work together, others will feel that they are being treated in a less than equal fashion.
But in the end, if love is in the air, go for it. Life isn’t perfect and neither is work. Who cares about the office anyway? Your career won’t comfort you when you’re old and grey.
If you’re watching just such a relationship, get over it. Shit happens.
Great word isn’t it? Nepotism. I thought it was from the greek god Nepo but Wikipedia says it’s from the Latin word nepos or nepotis for nephew. On the scale of playing favourites at work, it is one step up (or down depending on your point of view) from having a Teacher’s Pet. But is it all bad?
I got my first taste of what it means when my father was President of Consumer’s Distributing and got me a Christmas job in one of their stores. My job was literally to run back and forth from the stockroom to the order desk with merchandise. And run I did, off my feet. No breaks, short lunch.
I thought the working conditions were so bad I mentioned to a few co-workers that we should try to start a union. After that, no one talked to me. Not a good idea if you’re the boss’s son. Since then I’ve lost count of how many places I have worked where there was some sort of family element involved.
I have yet to decide whether nepotism is a good thing or a bad thing. Is it bad if you hire a family member for a summer job? How about a highly qualified family member for a real job? Or an obviously under-qualified jerk for a senior position?
I guess as in most things, it depends. It depends on whether you want to risk your own credibility and effectiveness as a leader. The penalty you’ll pay if it fails is the loss of respect of your team. And if the person is there forever, you’ve lost their respect for a long time.
In order to learn leadership, there are three things we need. We need a coach to show us how to improve, a process to follow, and some data to know if we are making progress. The trouble is that in the process of learning to be leaders we rarely get all of these.
