Which Wolf Are You Feeding?

As leaders in our organizations we’re in positions to make lots of choices.  One of the things we get to choose is how we interact with those we lead.  This particular choice is an important one.  We know that because a variety of studies demonstrate that the behaviors we model as leaders directly influence the behaviors of those around us.  Leadership contagion is real.   My behavioral choices as a leader will impact the choices my direct reports and others make.  We see that effect in all sorts of environments – the commercial workplace, certainly, but also in military, athletic, academic, and a host of other fields.  The leader’s behavior influences the behaviors of those being led.

As we’re out being contagious and choosing the behaviors we want to spread around our organizations, one to seriously consider is the degree of optimism or pessimism we want to model.  In my client work I often ask leaders about the degree of optimism and pessimism they’ve experienced in their own leaders.  I also ask them how those leadership behaviors correlated with their own job engagement and performance.   Most people can quickly recall personal experiences at both ends of the spectrum:  situations when they had a boss who always seemed to focus on the negatives (and job engagement and performance were generally low), and situations when they had a boss who always seemed to focus on the positives (and job engagement and performance were generally high).

As we think about characterizing our own levels of optimism and pessimism, many of us quickly recall the familiar “the glass is half-full” versus “the glass is half-empty” analogy.  It’s apt, and for good reason is a comparison we’ve all heard.  I recently read a story from the Cherokee culture that makes the same distinction between optimism and pessimism, but in a way that seems much more personal for us as leaders.  It was related by Barbara Fredrickson, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  She’s a world renown expert who studies the impact of positive emotions.  When I first heard the story my initial thought was how it applies to us personally and internally as leaders.  After reading it a second time, I began to think more about the contagious impact our choices in this area have externally on our organizations and those we lead.  See what you think:

One evening a thoughtful, old Cherokee told his grandson about the continuous battle that goes on inside people.  He said, “My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us all.  One is Negativity.  It’s anger, sadness, stress, contempt, disgust, fear, embarrassment, guilt, shame, and hate.  The other is Positivity.  It’s joy, gratitude, serenity, interest, hope, pride, amusement, inspiration, awe, and above all, love.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather:  “Which wolf wins?”

The old Cherokee looked wisely at his young grandson and then replied, “The one you feed.”

I want to encourage you to consider where you’re choosing to land on the optimistic-to-pessimistic leadership scale.  That will tell you a lot about how you’re feeding those you’re leading.

Bob Sherwin – Chief Operating Officer

The Big Lesson about Leadership from Steve Jobs

A great deal has been written about the co-founder of Apple Computer in the aftermath of his passing. Colorful stories abound about his brilliance at developing products that millions of people have fallen in love with.  At the same time, the darker side of Steve Jobs is also well documented.  Is there a valuable lesson we can extract from his career?

We think there is one huge lesson from which we all can learn.  Simply put the lesson is this.  Steve Jobs will be remembered because he possessed a handful of remarkable strengths that he leveraged.  These strengths were so profound, they completely overshadowed his failings.  End of lesson.

How does that apply to millions of people in the world who occupy positions of leadership?  We think the lesson is for all of us to work on developing our strengths, and to not automatically gravitate toward trying to overcome something that we don’t do well.  Our experience and our research confirms that the great majority of leaders,  when asked to create a plan of development, immediately want to find out their faults and failings and start there.  The underlying assumption is that “Whatever strengths I have — those will take care of themselves.”  “The way to get better is to fix my failings.”

The research is clear, however.  The most effective leaders are not the ones without flaws, nor are they above average on virtually every leadership competency.  Neither of those paths leads someone to being a great leader.  You must possess 3 to 5 competencies on which you excel.

Jobs had great passion for product excellence.  He insisted on elegant design and simplicity.  Unlike many other CEO’s he became extremely engrossed in the details, especially when it came to the product and how it was marketed.  He set stretch goals for both hardware and software and pushed people to accomplish more than they dreamed possible.

These strengths trumped his imperfections.  Yes, he could be rude, unreasonable, fickle, and arrogant. He took credit for other’s ideas.  This list is nearly endless.  Let’s be very clear, if he had not possessed the remarkable strengths noted earlier, this behavior would have capsized him earlier in his career.  Strengths eclipse shortcomings.

The message to every leader is this.  Identify those distinctive strengths you possess.  Find ways to magnify them. Lead with them.  They will make you into a truly extraordinary leader.

By the way, do your best to minimize any negative behavior.  The number of leaders who simultaneously combine profound strengths with fatal flaws is roughly 1%, according to our research.  Possessing seriously negative behaviors greatly diminishes your chance of being a truly extraordinary leader, but simply removing the negative behaviors without developing strengths does nothing more than getting you to ground zero.

Jack Zenger — CEO & Co-founder

Learn more about The Fascinating Case of Steve Jobs in the upcoming webinar on Jan. 25, 2012 at 1:00 PM ET.Register Now

Season’s Greetings from Zenger Folkman

Season’s Greetings! We hope you have enjoyed blogging with us this year. The blog will be updated in January 2012. Until then, Happy Holidays!

From Everyone at Zenger Folkman

Stay in touch with our blog to see what we have to say about leadership, or visit us at www.zengerfolkman.com.

Can Strengths Be Carried Too Far?

We can all think of examples of things that are good for us when done in moderation, but when done in excess can be harmful.  For example, drinking water is generally good for us.  But, when done in excess, even drinking water can become deadly.  The same thing holds true for exercise.  It is a good thing when done in reasonable doses, but people injure themselves when they get carried away.

Can Developing Strengths be Taken too Far?

That same concern has been expressed about leaders building their strengths.  Does that same principle of the danger of going too far apply to leadership development?   There are those who strongly argue “Yes.”  That point of view was strongly advanced by two respected researchers, Kaiser and Kaplan in an article in the Harvard Business Review entitled, “Stop Overdoing Your Strengths.”  Here is the essence of their argument.  They divided leadership behavior into two buckets.  They labeled one group of behaviors as “forceful” and the other group of behaviors they label as “enabling.”

1. Forceful behaviors included such things as being highly directive, always stepping in to take charge, making every decision, and pushing others to higher productivity.
2. Enabling behaviors included being cautious, gentle, understanding, mild mannered, expressing appreciation but not criticism, not standing up for personal beliefs and being almost exclusively focused on other people.

Each of these was then defined as a  “strength.”  Their argument goes on to say that if a person overuses forceful behavior, their effectiveness is diminished.  Similarly, if a leader uses enabling behavior to excess, then  their effectiveness declines in a similar way.

We would wholeheartedly agree with their conclusion about these two groups of behavior.  Either one taken to an extreme leads to ineffectiveness.  We can all think of leaders who are autocratic and micro-managing.  They are prime candidates for the bad-boss distinction.

And if you have worked in organizations for very long, you’ve probably met a manager who was reluctant to step into problems, who was excessively nice, and who desperately needed to be liked by others far more than feeling the need to get things accomplished.  That is highly ineffective behavior.

So where is the disagreement?

Strengths Need to be Carefully Defined

We take issue with defining forceful and enabling behavior as strengths.  These terms describe behaviors, but not every behavior is a strength.  Simply because a trait can be described does not elevate it to being a strength.  Indeed, we and others who have attempted to analyze and define strengths have come to the following conclusions regarding the definition of a strength:

1. A trait or behavior that produces positive outcomes
2. A trait or behavior that is valued in its own right
3. A trait that when used does not diminish or detract from others
4. A trait that can be used in widely varying situations
5. A trait that has enduring value
6. A trait that is consistently admired when displayed by others
7. A trait or behavior displayed at an extremely high level, typical of those at the 90^th percentile

If the above set of criteria is applied to “forceful” and “enabling” as two traits, it is easy to see that they fail the test.  Being forceful does not always produce good outcomes, it is not valued in its own right, it detracts from other valuable behaviors, it doesn’t work in all situations, and we don’t consistently admire people who possess that trait.  If someone is at the 90^th percentile on that behavior, a large majority of people would seek to avoid them.

The same analysis could be done with enabling behavior.  It becomes readily apparent that it will fail this set of criteria that describe a true strength.

Examples of Strengths

Our research leads us to an entirely different set of strengths.  From our research the strengths that emerged were the following:

• Character
  • Problem Solving Skills
  • Technical Competence
  • Taking initiative
  • Focus on results
  • Communication skills
  • Innovation

Can you have too much of these?  The contrast between these strengths and those identified by Kaplan and Kaiser is simply that it is hard to imagine someone having too much character, or being too good of a problem solver, or being too technically competent.

Achieving Balance

Our conclusion is that true strengths cannot be overdone.  There is no danger of a leader working too hard and become overly effective and proficient at something that is a true strength.  Those qualities that are defined as strengths can be pursued vigorously and without any fear of going too far.  Moderation is not the optimum objective.  There is virtue in having balance in the use of strengths, but that does not mean ratcheting back on one in fear that it will detract from another.

Kaplan and Kaiser suggest that backing off strengths is the right solution.  The person seen as “too forceful” should be more moderate.  The “too enabling” person should be less empowering or less sensitive to others.

Balance is important, but our remedies for getting balance differ.   For example, our data clearly shows that a leader who gets extremely high scores on “drive for results” will be more effective if those scores are balanced with high scores on interpersonal relationships.  We frequently coach leaders who have extremely high scores on driving for results.  They often catch a certain degree of criticism from colleagues about the impact they are having on the organization.  But asking this leader to ratchet down a passion for results is not the best advice in our opinion. That is probably a big part of what got this leader into his or her current position. Our recommendation is to hang tight on high standards and lofty expectations; but balance it with a greater emphasis on developing new “people” relating behavior.

One executive who sought to optimize his strengths decided he wished to be more inspiring and motivating.  His resolve was to do the following, and  he put sticky notes on his computer screen to remind him of the following:

• Be more effusive with praise.
• Let people figure things out for themselves
• Always ask,  “What do you think”
• Delegate more things (ask others what they’d like to do)
• Deliberately set stretch goals with my team
• Paint (and repaint) a compelling vision

The more strengths a leader possesses the greater the likelihood of making a profound contribution to the organization.

Conclusion

In short, we find no evidence that what we and others have identified as strengths can ever be overdone.  Therefore, we can’t envision a time when we would advise a leader to tone down one of their strengths.  Some might see these differences as subtle nuances.  They are not.  These result in very different approaches to improving leadership behavior.

Jack Zenger — CEO & Co-founder

 

 

 

Is your company prepared to fail in 2012?

– The following is a guest post from leadership blogger Andrew Bryant, CSP PCC, founder of Self Leadership International.–

A friend of mine is an Asia Pacific Managing Director for a global firm. We were chatting over lunch and I was sharing the need for a long-term approach to developing leaders. “I agree,” he said, “but my company would never sign up for something like that.” When I inquired as to why not, he explained that any commitment to learning and development would be viewed by quarter, because, with the uncertain future in 2012 they would want to be able to cut back on any non-essential expenditure!

This conversation highlights the dangerous lack of preparedness that many leadership teams are in. If 2012 is going to be uncertain or tough, then shouldn’t we get ready for it? Shouldn’t we put the best leadership team in place and make sure they have the competencies required? Or is this a non-essential expense?

Consider that, post the Global Financial Crisis, many leadership teams were decimated by cut backs and organizations are talking about growth when they don’t have the bench strength of talent to achieve it. It is frightening that less than 10% of executives have a plan to develop their strengths and the more senior they get; the less likely they are to receive constructive performance and strategic feedback.

My friend’s organization has 20,000 plus employees and I happen to know that engagement is low and in certain sectors attrition is high. It costs, on average, 18 months’ salary for each manager or professional that leaves, creating a massive financial strain. The engagement or commitment levels of employees are critical to an organizations success and yet with an increased work-load and smaller work-force employees are feeling stressed and fragile.

You would think that now is the time to align the leadership, and engage people through focusing on developing the skills to face ‘The New Norm’ that will be 2012, but perhaps this is a non-essential expense?

A PWC survey showed that 66% of CEO’s say that talent gaps are their biggest fear, whilst 52% are worried about the competition poaching their top talent. And in Asia, where 90% of CEO’s think growth will come from, there exists an alarming shortage of highly competent people leaders.

If this is not a compelling argument to make a strategic commitment at developing and retaining top talent then I don’t know what is. Unfortunately companies are highly sensitive to cost and see this activity as an expense rather than an investment. To an extent, I can actually sympathize with this view. Many so called leadership training programs are either outdated ‘cookie cutter’ approaches or they are just too academic. Such programs suck up time and money and don’t often deliver a tangible or measurable result.

If you are going to develop your leadership talent you are going to have to go beyond the generic leadership competency list that HR has kindly put on a Power Point slide. You are going to have to identify what specific behaviors do you want your leaders to role model. These can be as fundamental as that ability to give constructive feedback or have a crucial conversation without it degenerating into conflict. More advanced behaviors might include the ability to re-frame a challenging business situation and be able to identify opportunities or to communicate strategy in a way that middle management can delegate and execute.

To achieve measurable result requires seeing developing and retaining talent as a core business function and putting some metrics around the results. It requires an attitude of preparing people for the challenge ahead and not just making do. The approach of just doing the odd training here or there when the budget allows probably is an “unnecessary expense,” because if the business doesn’t fail, it will fail to capture the growth that it so desperately desires

Andrew Bryant, CSP PCC

Andrew Bryant, CSP PCC, founder of Self Leadership International, is a consultant, speaker and author on the topic of Self-leadership, developing leaders and leadership teams.

 

You Are Not the Best Judge of You

–This is a re-post of an HBR original blog by Scott Edinger. View the original post –

“To create a reliable 360 survey,” Marcus Buckingham concludes in his recent blog on this site, “The Fatal Flaws With 360 Surveys,” all you need do is…ask the rater to evaluate himself on his own feelings.” Since you are an expert on your own feelings, your responses have to be solid.

That seems logical, and yet I could not disagree more with this conclusion. In an effort to give equal time to the other side of the story, and to clarify some misconceptions, let me share with you the reasons why not getting 360-degree feedback may actually be fatal. (But here’s hoping that in the course of this debate there are no fatalities.)

1. Leadership effectiveness is in the eye of those who are led.
2. Subjective 360 data can correlate to objective business results. 
3. You don’t have to be great at everything. 
4. You are not the best judge of you.

I’ll be the first to agree that a 360 assessment is no panacea and that the tool can be over-, miss-, and incorrectly used. But in my experience, there’s simply no substitute for getting feedback from the people who are the most influenced and affected by your actions, talents, and skills. Applied creatively, a 360-degree feedback process can be an incredibly powerful tool to help you identify your strengths, grant you insight into how you can make them even more effective, and alert you to any behavior that might be severely detracting from your effectiveness. Are the 360 data objective? No. But even so they can help leaders create an objective, personal plan of development. And they’re certainly more effective than just asking yourself.

Scott Edinger is the executive vice president of Zenger/Folkman leadership development consultancy. He is a coauthor of the October 2011 HBR article, “Making Yourself Indispensable,” and the book The Inspiring Leader.

The George Costanza Approach to Fixing Fatal Flaws

–This is a re-post of an HBR original blog by Scott Edinger. View the original post –

In my work on leadership development, the first thing I usually advise is to look past your flaws to your strengths, since no one becomes an extraordinary leader by becoming flawless. You become a great leader, our research shows, by having strengths so profound people forgive, if not completely overlook, your faults.

But about 20% of the time, I encounter a person whose flaws are so deep that no strengths can make up for them.

I’m not talking about run-of-the-mill, we’re-all-human, flaws. These are fatal, career-ending flaws. I have, for instance, seen individuals squander extraordinary technical strengths because of a complete inability to communicate their expertise to anyone. I have seen people who have rendered moot an outstanding ability to deliver results and solve problems because they focus entirely on details and utterly fail to develop a strategic perspective. I have known brilliant innovators crippled because their people don’t trust them.

This sounds dire — and it is, if unaddressed. But fixing flaws is a simpler matter than capitalizing on strengths. It may be too lofty to say you can turn so significant a problem area into a strong suit, but in most cases I’ve observed, a fatal flaw can be defused. And the path could not be more straightforward.

It’s so simple, in fact, that we can take a page from my favorite Seinfeld character, George Costanza, a man with hilarious and obvious fatal flaws. In one particular episode, while reflecting on his many failures in life, George has a moment of poignant self-awareness and says to Jerry, Elaine, and Kramer, “It became very clear to me sitting out there today that every decision I’ve ever made in my entire life has been wrong. My life is the opposite of everything I want it to be. Every instinct I have, in every part of my life, be it something to wear, something to eat…. It’s all been wrong.” So George sets out to do the opposite of what he’d normally do at every turn. And what happens? He gets a great job with the New York Yankees. He finds that women are suddenly attracted to him. All of his fortunes are reversed.

This is not quite as far-fetched as it seems. The answer to addressing fatal flaws really is to do what George did — the opposite of what you’d normally do. But if the path is simple, mustering the will to follow through consistently often is not. Like a novice first starting to train as a runner, you will get better by simply going from being sedentary to starting to run, and then running longer and longer distances — but only if you do keep running longer and longer distances. And even so, you won’t win any marathons that way. You won’t become a champion, but you can go from bad to pretty good, which is all that’s required on the path to becoming an outstanding leader.

Here are some specific examples of “doing the opposite” for some of the most common fatal flaws I’ve encountered with leaders.
View the Examples on HBR.org

Scott Edinger — Co-Author of The Inspiring Leader

Become an Extraordinary Leader

–This is a re-post of an HBR original blog by Scott Edinger. View the original post –

Here’s a short quiz:

When you brought your report card home in high school did your parents:

A) zero in on the C’s and say, “What’s the matter here?”

B) focus the A-minuses, pat you on the back, and say, “Great job, now let’s push these up to A’s”?

If you’re typical of the high-potential leaders I work with, you experienced A. And I suspect that wasn’t only your parent’s reaction, it was yours as well — and not just for your report cards but for your performance reviews. And why not? The point of a progress report is to point out where you need to make progress. And certainly that means shoring up your weaknesses, doesn’t it?

Not if you want to be an extraordinary leader. As humans we all have our inherent weaknesses. But leadership-development research we’ve conducted with data from thousands of executives from all over the world points unmistakably to the conclusion that it’s the presence of a few truly profound areas of strength that distinguishes us in an organization — the things you’re so good at that people forgive (or don’t even think about) your weaknesses.

The importance of strengths is hardly a new idea. Peter Drucker was writing about it nearly 50 years ago, and over the last decade it has come back in vogue. Yet the practical application of that idea remains elusive. How do you get better at what you’re already good at?

Improving weaknesses is intuitive and straightforward. To display greater honesty or integrity, for instance, is a matter of following through on commitments, leading by example, demonstrating ethical resolve in adverse circumstances. Developing weak technical skills is a matter of attending training classes, reading relevant publications, taking on job assignments in which you can hone your expertise, and so on. But what if you’re already strong in these areas? Taking more classes won’t really help someone who is already a tech wiz become an extraordinary leader. And what should an honest person do: act more honestly?

Creating any profound leadership strength requires a more thoughtful approach. At a very broad level, here are three principles to focus on as you work to develop strengths:

View the 3 Priniciples on HBR

Scott Edinger — Co-author of The Inspiring Leader

7 Ways to Lead by Going First

– This is a guest post by Bud to Boss blogger, Kevin Eikenberry –

To lead someone or something means, literally, to be in front, so that others can see and follow in that direction.  Stated another way, if you think you are leading, but no one is following, you are just taking a walk.

In yet other words, leaders are leaders because of what they do, not because of a position they hold or the title printed on their business cards.  This idea is central to the process of, and having success in, leading others.

This idea holds all of us as leaders accountable for our actions – and it means that “leading by example” is a phrase with too many words.  Perhaps the only (and definitely the best) way to lead is “by example.”

So if we are going to lead by example, what are some of the most important examples we can set?

That is the question I want to begin to answer (and get you thinking about) with the rest of this article.

Attitude

Your attitude matters more than everyone else’s.  As a leader, they are looking to you, watching for clues and modeling your attitude.  Remember that someone must inject the positive attitude, must smile first, and must make it ok to think about problems proactively.  If you don’t do it, who else will?  If you aren’t doing it, what are you waiting for?

Learning

Every leader wants those they lead to be learning, developing and growing.  It is hard to convince them to do so if they don’t see you doing it.  If you want others to be learners, you must be one first.  Besides, the role of leader is complex enough that there is always something you can learn; always something you can get better at.

Expectations

The expectations you have for others will impact their performance, positively or negatively.   Which way will it be?   Are you going first by raising your expectation of others so they can build confidence, urgency and discipline to reach those expectations?  It won’t happen automatically.  Set your expectations of others, let people know you believe in them, then watch them grow!

Change

If you want to affect and implement change you must be a champion of it.  If you want the change to be successful, you must lead people towards it.  This goes beyond corporate initiatives and major projects.  Are you open to trying new things?  Are you flexible in your approaches?   If you want others to be, remember who they are watching . . .

Trust

If you want to build more trust in your organization – or with specific individuals, you must go first. Offer them trust.  Be more trustworthy.  Waiting for others to take the lead, could be a long wait.  Extend and offer trust first.  Occasionally you will get hurt, more often greater trust will build.

Questions

If you want the input of others, stop talking and start asking.  Ask questions first.  Ask questions often. Good questions promote learning, information clarity and exchange and engagement.  If you want these things, stop talking and start asking.

Listening

Certainly, once you ask a question you will be best served by listening to the response.   Listening is such an important behavior because it not only allows for information to be successfully shared, but it communicates to the other person that you care about their thoughts, the facts and who they are.  For these reasons and many more, listen more!

Setting an example means taking the risk, doing what is necessary, doing what no one else is doing.  It means going first.

Where are you going?

Kevin Eikenberry

Kevin is the Chief Potential Officer of The Kevin Eikenberry Group, a learning consulting company that has been helping organizations, teams and individuals reach their potential since 1993. Emphasizing the power of learning, Kevin’s specialties include leadership, teams and teamwork, organizational culture, facilitating change, training trainers and more. Connect with Kevin on his website, blog, Twitter, or pick up leadership tips for emerging leaders and a copy of his new book, Bud to Boss.

 

Six Core Elements to Leading a Peak Performance Culture

–This is a guest post from Practical Leadership blogger, Jim Clemmer–

Organizational culture development is a complex topic with many intertwined leadership components. Establishing a peak performance culture in what’s sometimes called a “green field” situation has different challenges than changing an established culture (sometimes called “brown field”).

A participant in our culture change work recently observed and asked:

“Many companies are older organizations and are simply staid and entrenched. You are a great advocate of personal growth in our leaders. How do you bring this about in organizations? Personal development (or self awareness being the more accurate description) does not come from reading a few books or attending the odd seminar. Much like attending a psychologist or counseling, it requires a genuine desire for change/growth and sustained effort, sometimes over many years. Most contemporary leaders would simply be too busy or challenged by it to want to engage in this sort of thing. How do you think we can tackle this dilemma?”

He put his finger on a key challenge of revitalizing an established “brown field culture.” It has to start with the understanding and motivation of the organization’s key leaders for deep and sustained change. Often that means a transformation. Rarely will incremental change or implementing current practices more efficiently or faster be enough.

We’ve been working with more and more executive teams who proclaim strategies for transforming their culture toward higher safety, customer service, innovation, Lean/Six Sigma approaches, productivity, employee engagement, or new technology platforms. Often their intentions are strong but their understanding of just what it takes is weak. They’re innocently ignorant.

In their Harvard Business Review article, “Cracking the Code of Change,” Michael Beer and Nitin Nohria write, “The brutal fact is that about 70% of all change initiatives fail.” This is consistent with what’s being reported in many studies of transformation and change efforts.

We’ve found these “fatal five failure factors” are tightly intertwined roots of the problem:

• Partial and Piecemeal Plans and Programs
• Poor Assessment of Systems/Processes and Perceptions/Attitudes
• Leadership Lip Service: Behaviors Undefined and Underdeveloped
• Not Building Cause and Capacity for Continuous Change
• Weak Implementation Framework, Plan, and Infrastructure

Every organization has a culture. The critical question is whether it’s by design or by default. Leading or designing a peak performance culture calls for weaving together many elements. Central to successful culture development is balancing the discipline of systems, processes, and technology management on a base of effective people leadership.

The framework we’ve found most successful has six core elements:

Focus and Context (Vision, Values, and Purpose)

• Bringing alive the vision, values, and purpose/mission at the centre of organization’s culture to eliminate the “snicker factor” that comes rarely used statements hanging on walls and posted on web sites.

Customers/Partners

• Focusing the entire organization on external customer needs and expectations.
• Strengthening internal partnerships working back from external customer expectations (outside-in) across teams and departments.
• Extending “the customer service/quality chain” out to external partners such as suppliers, distributors, and strategic alliances.

Strategy and Direction

• Aligning strategy, structure, and roles up, down, and across the organization.
• Establishing three – five annual strategic imperatives to focus daily operations and strategic change/improvement efforts.
• Cascading a goal deployment system for disciplined follow through down all organizational levels.

Measures and Rewards

• Balancing leading indicators like operational and customer service or quality with lagging indicators such as financial measures.
• Establishing a feedback-rich culture for continuous learning and improvement.
• Aligning reward and recognition programs and practices with desired behaviors.
• Continuously changing and improving through reviewing, assessing, celebrating, and refocusing.

Processes and Systems

• Streamlining processes at the local/tactical, cross-functional/departmental, and strategic/organizational levels.
• Aligning key organizational support systems (HR, IT, financial, controls, planning, etc.) to reduce frustration and boost performance.

Learning and Development

• Delivering effective education and communications strategies, systems, and practices.
• Assessing and closing skill development gaps.
• Building more strong departmental, project, and cross-functional teams.
• Assessing and closing gaps in organizational learning, knowledge management, and innovation.
• Building a strong planning process and infrastructure to support ongoing transformation and change processes.

This type of integrated framework keeps culture transformation efforts from falling victim to the Fatal Five Failure Factors. It provides a template for assessment, priority setting, planning, implementation, and course correction. This creates a leader led and designed culture for peak performance.

Culture change and organizational transformation is complex, takes time, and requires strong leadership. But the core elements of successful implementation are fairly simple and doable. If you have the leadership will; there is a way.

Jim Clemmer 

—Starting with partnership with Zenger Miller in 1981, Jim Clemmer’s practical leadership approaches have been inspiring action and achieving results. He’s published seven international bestselling books in over a dozen languages. He has delivered thousands of keynote presentations, workshops, and executive team retreats to hundreds of organizations around the globe. He’s listed in the World’s Top 30 Most Influential Leadership Gurus based on research with 22,000 global business people, consultants, academics and MBAs.

Click on Leading a Peak Performance Culture for information on his free 60 minute webcast on November 4 will expand on the failure factors and six core elements.