Anthony Tjan on “critical conversations”

Anthony Tjan

Here is an excerpt from article written by Anthony Tjan for the Harvard Business Review blog. To read the complete article, check out other articles and resources, and/or sign up for a free subscription to Harvard Business Review‘s Daily Alerts, please visit dailyalert@email.harvardbusiness.org.

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I have co-written this week’s blog entry with Tsun-yan Hsieh, who has spent the past three decades working with global leaders to help them become more effective. He is Director Emeritus at McKinsey, as well as a member of the Cue Ball Collective. Recently Tsun-yan wrote a guest blog entry on recognizing the decisive moments in leadership. This post expands on that theme and is based on leadership research he has conducted over the last five years in Asia, North America, and Europe.

Leaders get things done through others; they constantly need to prioritize tasks, develop growth strategies, and delegate responsibilities. The most effective leaders also know how to have courageous conversations. Most important leadership transactions still take place in live, in-person conversations. Virtual, asynchronous communications such as email, sms, Twitter and Facebook postings are faster, cheaper, and more convenient than in-person options for staying connected and sharing information. But problems arise when they are used to avoid critical or challenging messages that can have significant impact on a business. Good leaders embrace technology to enhance communication productivity, but they are careful not to replace the in-person conversations required to get difficult things done.

There are three types of critical conversations for leaders to master — one-on-one meeting, small group discussions, and one-to-many town-hall style convenings — and three ways for improving them. The effectiveness of each style of meeting depends on the participants and setting, the credibility and completeness of your intent, and your responsiveness to and emotional engagement with your audience.

[Here is one of them.]

Responsiveness and emotional engagement

The best leaders go beyond good listening to make a caring connection at an emotional level. They respond to others’ needs as they surface, thereby building trust. A good leader is willing to adjust her goals for the conversation based on the discoveries she makes about others’ needs, while staying true to her own values. This does not mean being flexible to the point of agreeing to whatever the other party wants, but rather being open to a set of shared outcomes.

The ability to engage in direct, persuasive in-person conversations remains the skill most crucial to leaders’ success. It’s not often that executives ask for help to improve their conversation skills. More likely, they ask for things like improving teamwork at the top, creating greater empowerment down the line, catalyzing innovation, and helping better align board expectations. When you investigate many of these familiar issues, you usually find that the right conversations either didn’t happen or failed to produce the necessary outcomes. You can’t afford not to have your conversations work the way they should for you and for the good of your enterprise.

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To read the complete article, check out other articles and resources, and/or sign up for a free subscription to Harvard Business Daily Alerts, please visit dailyalert@email.harvardbusiness.org.

I also highly recommend these books:

Influence: Science and Practice (5th Edition)
Robert B. Cialdini

Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work and in Life One Conversation at a Time
Susan Scott

Also, two co-authored by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler

Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High

Influencer: The Power to Change Anything

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Anthony Tjan is CEO, Managing Partner and Founder of the venture capital firm Cue Ball. An entrepreneur, investor, and senior advisor, Tjan has become a recognized business builder.

Steve Denning on how to create a culture of storytelling

Steve Denning

Steve Denning is one of my intellectual heroes. There is no one else who knows more about the business narrative as an art form, nor anyone who knows more about how to formulate a high-impact business narrative that will help to achieve strategic objectives, whatever they may be.

Here is an excerpt from a recent blog. To read the complete article, check out a wealth of other resources (including an audio recording of a recent Smithsonian symposium on effective communication, and/or sign up for a free subscription, please visit http://www.stevedenning.com/site/Default.aspx.

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I am sometimes asked: what’s involved in creating a culture of storytelling in an organization? How do you create an organization in which authentic storytelling is the natural and normal way of communicating? How do you do this in a way that is highly productive for the organization as well as deeply satisfying for the participants?

I believe that six steps are needed.

[Here are the first two.]

1. The first step is to recognize that establishing a storytelling culture must not only encourage good storytelling: it must meet other goals as well. Thus a storytelling culture in which people sat around all day telling stories to each other and got nothing done would not be sustainable. We must not only have good storytelling: it must also contribute to getting things done in the organization. Otherwise it will be seen as an encumbrance to the organization and will not survive.

We also need to recognize that storytelling is not an end in itself. This was recognized in the question that Paul Costello raised at the close of the Smithsonian session last month: He asked: What would be involved in creating an analytic framework to ensure that positive storytelling was encouraged and the de-humanizing storytelling was identified and discouraged?

Paul’s question implies that there is a good storytelling (life-enhancing) and bad storytelling (de-humanizing). In promoting a culture of storytelling, we are interested in promoting the former rather than the latter. This in turn recognizes that storytelling is not an end in itself. It is a tool that can be used for good (life-enhancing) purposes or for bad (de-humanizing) purposes.

When we say life-enhancing, we have in mind interactions that enrich human relationships, that lift up the human spirit, and that appeal to the highest qualities of mind, heart and soul, that may even foster truth, beauty and love.

When we say bad or de-humanizing, we may have mind interactions that crush the human spirit, that foster fear, hate, meanness, selfishness and back-stabbing, that create environments that are boring, stifling, dishonest, ugly and systematically dispiriting. Eventually such cultures lead to repression, discrimination and even wars.

Once we recognize that storytelling is not an end itself, we need to be clear on what is the end for which storytelling should be deployed. Why do we like storytelling? Why do we want a storytelling culture? A short answer is that goal for which storytelling should be deployed is to foster high-quality interactive human relationships.

2. The next step is to recognize that storytelling is not the only way to create high-quality, interactive human relationships. Storytelling is a big part of accomplishing this, but it’s not the only part: open-ended questions are often a more powerful and appropriate way of fostering high-quality human relationships: instead of telling people stories, one listens to what other people have to contribute. The goal is not to tell stories, but rather to have open-minded conversations, by stories, questions or whatever way of communicating that enables this.

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I urge you to check out Steve Denning’s books, notably The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling, The Springboard, Squirrel Inc.: A Fable of Leadership & Storytelling, and The Secret Language of Leadership. His next book, The Leader’s Guide to RADICAL MANAGEMENT, will be published in November (2010). Here is a link to information about it:

http://www.stevedenning.com/Books/radical-management.aspx.

Maddy Dychtwald’s suggestions to help shift economic power

Maddy Dychtwald

In Influence: How Women’s Soaring Economic Power Will Transform Our World for the Better published by Voice/Hyperion (2010) and written with Christine Larson, Maddy Dychtwald suggests that, throughout the world, a “power shift” is happening. “As women unleash the full power of economic emancipation, the world is waiting to see what happens. How will women use their power?” She offers a number of suggestions to her reader that will support the shift of economic power:

1. Foster financial knowledge, education, and expertise for women and girls.

2. Support paid family leave, paid sick leave, and other family-friendly policies.

3. Insist that great, affordable child care is a family issue, not a women’s issue.

4. Run for [political] office or support women who do.

5. Buy products [from companies] that pay women fair wages.

6. Invest in companies and enterprises that help women help themselves.

7. Mentor girls. Support or take part in programs that that bring girls into the workplace or to universities, and that encourage them to enter math- and science-based fields.

8. Enlist men. Encourage your husband, brothers, sons, male employees, and co-workers to take maternity, work flexible hours, and heklp lobby for change.

9. Encourage your company, your community, and your country to support women in power.

10. Spread the word. Blog, tweet, and spread the word about ideas, initiatuves, and efforts to help women help themselves.

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Maddy Dychtwald is a nationally recognized author, public speaker, marketing executive and entrepreneur. She is the author of three books, including Influence and Cycles: How We Will Live, Work, and Buy (2004).

Christine Larson an award-winning writer, editor and author living in Northern California. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, US News & World Report, More, Redbook, and many other magazines. She’s also co-written four books, with Influence the most recent.

Campbell Brown for CEO!

Quick – let’s hire this woman to be the new CEO of BP, and Massey Energy, and Toyota.

I wasn’t especially a fan of Campbell Brown’s hour on CNN.  But she is now leaving.  And this is an honest statement about why she is leaving.  It is a shock to read, in this day of spin, denial, blame game, “it’s not my fault” responses to bad news.

Maybe she could start a revolution.

Read the article here.  Here’s the excerpt of her statement:

“To be clear: this is my decision, and one that I have been thinking about for some time,” she continued. “As for why, I could have said, that I am stepping down to spend more time with my children (which I truly want to do). Or that I am leaving to pursue other opportunities (which I also truly want to do). But I have never had much tolerance for others’ spin, so I can’t imagine trying to stomach my own. The simple fact is that not enough people want to watch my program, and I owe it to myself and to CNN to get out of the way so that CNN can try something else. CNN will have to figure out what that is.”

The “talent myth” revisited

Carol Dweck

The research conducted by Anders Ericsson and his associates at Florida State University has certainly generated a number of bestselling books (e.g. Geoff Colvin’s Talent Is Overrated, Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, and Daniel Coyle’s The Talent Code) as well as hundreds of articles. Their collective impact has repudiated what is generally referred to as the “Talent myth”: specifically, that innate ability rather than practice is what ultimately determines whether or not we have it (i.e. the “right stuff”) within us to achieve excellence.

Many people who share my interest in this subject are unaware of the fact that, since 1978, Carol Dweck, a professor at Stanford and one of the most influential psychologists of modern times, has been studying the relationship between talent and performance. One of her experiments that interests me most involved 330 fifth- and sixth-graders. Testing revealed that some were convinced that talent is set in genetic stone. They had what Dweck characterizes as a fixed mind-set. Others who believed that intelligence can be transformed through effort had what Dweck characterizes as a growth mind-set. Members of both groups had demonstrated above-average abilities prior to being asked to solve a series of exceptionally difficult puzzles.

Their responses to failure are rather interesting. According to Dweck,

“We saw that the students in the helpless [fixed mind-set] group blamed their intelligence [or insufficiency of it] when they hit failure. What did the students in the mastery-oriented [growth mind-set] blame? The answer, which surprised us, was that they did not blame anything. They didn’t focus on reasons for the failures. In fact, they didn’t even seem to consider themselves to be failing….”

To me, these are the most significant implications of what this experiment reveals:

1. Those with a fixed mind-set tend to interpret initial failure as evidence of their inability to succeed.

2. Those with a growth mind-set are not discouraged by initial failure and tend to try new approaches, solutions, etc.

More often than not, as various research studies suggest, both success and failure (however defined and measured) seem to be self-fulfilling prophecies. This is probably what Henry Ford had in mind when observing, “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re probably right.”

I highly recommend Dweck’s Self-Theories: Their Role in Motivation, Personality, and Development (2000) and a more recent book I found much easier to understand, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (2006).

Sanjay Khosla and Mohanbir Sawhney on Growth Through Focus: A Blueprint for Driving Profitable Expansion

Here is an excerpt from an article written by Sanjay Khosla and Mohanbir Sawhney for the May (2010) issue of strategy+business magazine. To read the complete article, please visit http://www.strategy-business.com/article/00034?gko=63292&cid=enews20100518.

Rather than seek increased revenues and profits by expanding products and markets, companies should follow a seven-step strategy for achieving more with less.

Faced with economic headwinds, many global corporations are struggling to grow their businesses profitably. In the consumer packaged goods business, for example, the worldwide recession has hurt premium brands as consumers have traded down to cheaper brands, private labels, or generics. In the retailing business, same-store sales are flat or declining for numerous companies. Meanwhile, many business leaders continue to seek growth by extending their existing product lines and brands, as well as by entering new geographic regions. After all, growth is supposed to be about “more” — more products on the shelf, more categories, more brands, and more markets.

However, this approach is exactly the opposite of what business leaders should do to drive increased revenues and profits. A typical “growth through more” strategy diffuses the organization’s efforts. It increases the complexity of the organization and its operations. We have found that “growth through less,” or more precisely “growth through focus,” is the best prescription for growth, regardless of the economic environment. This conclusion is based on our own experience in three well-known companies — Kraft Foods, Unilever, and Fonterra Brands (a dairy products business based in New Zealand) — on three continents over 10 years. In all three cases, a deliberate strategy of focusing on a few markets, brands, and categories produced impressive revenue and profit expansion. We have learned that seemingly mature businesses can be energized by making fewer but larger bets and by focusing relentlessly on executing a simple but powerful vision.

Growth through focus is not as easy as choosing what strategic bets to make. Rather, it requires the leadership team to follow a systematic approach that spans everything from strategy and vision to execution and measurement. We propose a framework that consists of seven steps that an organization must go through in its quest for growth through focus. Our framework is grounded in three key ideas: focus in strategy, simplicity in communication, and empowerment in execution.

Growth and the Winemaker’s Logic

To understand the logic behind growth through focus, consider what winemakers know about getting the best out of grapevines. Grapevines are very vigorous. With abundant water and nutrients in the soil, they tend to grow into large, leafy plants. However, overly vigorous vines produce lower-quality wine and smaller crops. When growing conditions are too rich, grapevines grow more leaves and become tangled. Leaves take nutrients away from grapes, which contain the seeds for future growth, and create shade, which inhibits ripening. To improve the quality of grapes, winemakers carefully prune grapevines and remove excess bunches of grapes to reduce yields. The remaining bunches ripen more fully and ultimately produce more concentrated wine.

Many companies, in effect, behave like inattentive vintners. Growth initiatives are often overstimulated with money and leadership attention. The result is lots of activity and a large number of growth projects, and this activity often does not correlate with outcomes. Quantity does not mean quality. To improve the quality of growth, business leaders need to cut back on marginal products, brands, and markets so that they have a better chance of winning in their chosen areas of focus.

Following the winemaker’s logic, company leaders must overturn conventional thinking about how to manage the organization, processes, and people for growth. (See Exhibit 1.) For example, a conventional core belief about growth is
that companies need to extend their product lines and brands and to expand their categories and markets. Leaders hope that the more arrows they have in their quiver and the more targets they have to shoot at, the more bull’s-eyes they will score. But in reality, growth often comes from fewer but stronger arrows aimed at fewer targets. The engines of growth are focus (fewer brands, fewer categories, and fewer markets) and simplicity (simple vision, simplified execution, and simpler organization designs). Conventional thinking also assumes that although complexity adds cost and makes the organization less agile, it is inevitable in a large global company. But complexity is an avoidable enemy of growth if you know what you are doing.

The logic of growth through focus also suggests a very different view on planning and leadership. Many companies tend to make long-term strategic plans, but they often have a short attention span in execution. CEOs and business leaders get seduced by doing something new and different well before the strategy has had time to play out. We recommend the reverse: Plan quickly and then stay the course for a long time, as long as five years. Leaders should resist the temptation to change strategies too often.

Seven Steps in Growth through Focus

Our experience suggests that growth through focus requires the organization to progress systematically through a set of seven steps: discovery, strategy, vision, people, execution, organization, and metrics. Taken together, they represent a powerful formula for driving profitable growth.

[Here’s the first step.]

1. Discovery: Figure Out What Works

Science fiction author William Gibson observed, “The future is already here. It’s just not very evenly distributed.” And so it is with excellence. All large companies have pockets of excellent growth performance. The first step in the growth journey is to discover what is working well and where the company is already winning. These pockets of excellence help identify focus areas for growth. An effective way to uncover what works is to conduct a series of workshops with the top leaders from the company.

At Unilever’s Lipton beverages business, the process began at Colworth House, the company’s R&D center in the United Kingdom. The top 100 leaders of Unilever beverages from around the world were invited to a workshop in 2000, whose agenda was to build upon what was working well in specific markets and to scale the success across other geographies. One year later, this was followed by a “10 in 10” workshop in Brussels to discuss how to achieve sales of US$10 billion within 10 years in these markets and to imagine the future of Lipton as seen through the eyes of Unilever’s major competitors.

In Kraft Foods’ international business, the growth process kicked off in 2007 with seven workshops in six locations around the world, each including about 20 of the company’s regional business leaders. The agenda was open-ended, with the top leaders taking a backseat to prevent their rank from impeding the flow of ideas and insights. An external facilitator ensured that collective experience was gathered objectively. The workshops focused on what worked rather than on what did not work, because it is easier to build on what is working than to fix what isn’t working. To ensure a customer focus, workshops included extensive immersion with consumers and customers to provide insights into behavior, needs, and problems. This immersion generates insights in ways that quantitative market research never can.
A few themes began to emerge from the workshops. Kraft Foods had excellent people, but their insights and ideas had been getting lost due to geographic dispersion, and their potential was not being fully realized. The company’s iconic brands had been built over many years, but several were underperforming. The planning process had tended to focus internally instead of externally, and had looked backward rather than forward. There was a lot of emphasis on analyzing what happened instead of figuring out what needed to be done. The conclusion was clear. The company urgently needed to establish clear priorities and accountability at a global, regional, and local level.

At the outset, the discovery process should be inclusive and democratic. It is important to involve key stakeholders within the company, particularly those who can make a valuable contribution and those who have the influence to get the masses of employees behind them. In addition, great insights often come from engaging with suppliers, creative and media agencies, and consultants who have worked with the company for a long time. On the other end of the spectrum, it is also important to listen to people who push back — and to manage dissent. As the process goes on and the framework and vision are agreed upon, debate on the strategic framework should cease and the emphasis should switch to execution.

To read the complete article, please visit <a href="http://www.strategy-business.com/article/00034?gko=63292&cid=enews20100518.”><a

Sanjay Khosla is president of Developing Markets and Global Categories for Kraft Foods. He has more than three decades of leadership experience in global consumer packaged goods companies and has lived and worked around the world.

Mohanbir Sawhney is Robert R. McCormick Tribune Foundation Clinical Professor of Technology and director of the Center for Research in Technology and Innovation at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. He has coauthored five books and many articles on marketing, technology, and innovation.