by Charles Plant | Feb 27, 2013 | Innovation
I was talking yesterday with someone who does most of her work at home, on a computer, sitting at the dining room table. Sounds idilic and it really is since the dining room is in Whistler and the office is in Vancouver. Sounds like a great life and part of an evolving trend but in the long run, I don’t think it works.
Today’s article on the Globe and Mail on Telework or Teamwork puts some balance to this telecommuting trend. Yahoo has even gone so far as to banning its employees from working remotely.
Don’t get me wrong, I do believe that working from home some of the time is a good thing, but all of the time, not so much. While companies are trying to save a few thousand dollars per year on an employee costing upwards of $100,000, they are losing a chance to connect, inspire, motivate and bond with employees.
To lead effectively, people need to know that you care about them and that just can’t be done from a distance.
by Charles Plant | Feb 26, 2013 | Emotional Intelligence
I was interested to read a piece of research done by the Centre for Creative Leadership on Empathy in the Workplace. Their white paper shows the results of research into performance and empathy. According to CCL, there is a direct link between performance at work and empathy. The more empathetic the leader, the better the performance.
What is surprising is that where workplaces are more traditional, with hierarchical power structures, empathy becomes even more important. That is to say that where leaders are expected to act in a powerful, paternalistic fashion, having empathy for followers is even more important than in more egalitarian organizations.
In our move from the industrial economy with paternalistic corporations to the knowledge economy with looser structure we may have lost our ability to empathize. In the past, the corporation cared for employees and that is now left to individual managers who may have never realized the important link between empathy and performance.
by Charles Plant | Feb 21, 2013 | Leadership Development
Yesterday’s post got me thinking more about this issue of respect. Why is it that some people respect charisma and yet others respect intellectual gravitas? I suppose that if you’re a street level drug dealer you might respect a drug kingpin. We don’t all respect the same people.
I think it comes down to the idea that we respect what we value. If we value fame, we respect people who are famous. If we value money, we respect people who are wealthy. If we value hard work, we respect hard workers. If however we value hard work, we won’t necessarily respect someone who is famous unless they got there with hard work.
The old adage exists that you must earn respect but if we only respect what we value, then it is probably worthless to try to earn the respect of someone who has fundamentally different values.
If you’re a leader then you better make sure that the people with whom you work share the same values as you or you’ll probably never earn their respect.
If you’re building an organization you’ll need to pay attention to values if you want to build a culture of respect.
by Charles Plant | Feb 20, 2013 | Leaders
Why as a society do we elect charismatic leaders as opposed to leaders who we can respect?
Both Michael Ignatieff and Stephane Dion were leaders with gravitas, people who could be respected for their contributions to society before entering politics. They failed however in wider elections.
We now have a very talented group of candidates for the liberal leadership. Marc Garneau, George Tackach, and Martha Hall Findlay all have backgrounds worthy of respect. And yet the purported leader is a man with very little work experience who has however, a great name, a fine head of hair and charisma that knows no bounds.
In the business world too, we often prefer the smiling charismatic and perhaps glib leader to one with gravitas.
Perhaps the ever-present prolific media is changing what we respect. Maybe now, respect is earned from image, not from deeds, from relationships, not from results.
by Charles Plant | Feb 14, 2013 | Leadership Development
I had a good lesson in trust yesterday when I was looking for an online mass mailing service. I went and found a few big ones on the net and tried out Constant Contact. I signed into their free trial, and fiddled around creating an email and a distribution list. After working with the software for a while I was satisfied that it would meet my needs but wanted to try a few others out.
Just as I was signing into another supplier I got a phone call from Tim Harrington, a customer service rep at Constant Contact. He had seen what I was working on and wanted to ask whether I had any questions. He made some recommendations as to how I could improve what I was doing and promised to help me upload my contact list when I was ready to go live. After we hung up he sent an email with contact information and let me know that he would do whatever he could to help me make my endeavours a success.
And that is from someone who only charges $15 a month. Amazing.
In a day when all of us question the motive of suppliers, when we imagine that all they are out for is the money and that they won’t go the extra mile to meet our needs, along comes a supplier who for very little money, is willing to go the extra step to earn the trust of a customer and create a connection to what would otherwise be a faceless company. Amazing. Needless to say I stopped my search right there having someone who went out of his way to earn my trust.
by Charles Plant | Feb 13, 2013 | Research
Not surprisingly, trust is often cited as a hallmark of successful relationships. What might not be so apparent is that it also works for teams. When the level of trust in the leader is increased, teams perform better.
One study attempted to look at trust by examining the level of trust in basketball teams. Originally published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, “Trust in Leadership and Team Performance: Evidence from NCAA Basketball” was written by Kurt T. Dirks. His hypothesis was that: “ Trust in leadership will have a positive effect on team performance.”
Dirks examined the level of trust in 31 NCAA basketball teams. What he found was that the two teams reporting the highest levels of trust in their coach at the start of the season excelled. One ended up being ranked as number one for most of the season and other played but lost in the championship game. The team with the lowest level of trust won only 10% of their games and the coach was fired.
