30 Books in 30 days – Remembering 15 years of the 1st Friday Book Synopsis – (Encouraging the Heart by James Kouzes and Barry Posner)

{On April 5, 2013, we will celebrate the 15^th Anniversary of the First Friday Book Synopsis, and begin our 16^th year.  During March, I will post a blog post per day remembering key insights from some of the books I have presented over the 15 years of the First Friday Book Synopsis.  We have met every first Friday of every month since April, 1998 (except for a couple of weather –related cancellations).  These posts will focus only on books I have presented.  My colleague, Karl Krayer, also presented his synopses of business books at each of these gatherings.  I am going in chronological order, from April, 1998, forward.  The fastest way to check on these posts will be at Randy’s blog entries — though there will be some additional blog posts interspersed among these 30.}
Post #3 of 30

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Synopsis presented May, 1999
Encouraging the Heart: A Leader’s Guide to Rewarding and Recognizing Others by James Kouzes and Barry Posner (Simon and Schuster, 1999)

This may be the single business book synopsis that I have presented more than any other.  I have presented this to leadership teams in many companies and organizations.  It is an incredibly practical, important book.

Why?  Because people need to get better at their jobs, and they need to be encouraged to get better and do better.  People do not get better on their own!  And every organization wrestles with this challenge – “how do we help our folks get better at their jobs?”  The answer is found in practicing encouragement – encouraging the heart.  That’s the wisdom of Kouzes and Posner, and this book sets forth a plan to do exactly that.

The book is filled with wisdom.  From the book:

Encouraging the Heart is ultimately about keeping hope alive.  Leaders keep hope alive when they set high standards and genuinely express optimism about an individual’s capacity to achieve them.  They keep hope alive when they give feedback and publicly recognize a job well done.  They keep hope alive when they give their constituents the internal support that all human beings need to feel that they and their work are important and have meaning.  They keep hope alive when they train and coach people to exceed their current capacities.  Most important, leaders keep hope alive when they set an example.  There really is nothing more encouraging than to see our leaders practice what they preach.

Really believe in your heart of hearts that your fundamental purpose, the reason for being, is to enlarge the lives of others.  Your life will be enlarged also.

We don’t do our best in isolation.  We don’t get extraordinary things done by working alone with no support, encouragement, expressions of confidence, or help from others.  That’s not how we make the best decisions, get the best grades, run faster, achieve the highest levels of sales, invent breakthrough products, or live longer.

All of this requires that leaders understand their roles – and aim for self-improvement themselves:

Leadership development is self-development…  To know what to change in our lives, we need to understand what we’re doing that is getting the results we want and what we’re doing that is not.

And this book has one of my all-time favorite quotes:

We lead by being human. We do not lead by being corporate, professional, or institutional.  (Paul G. Hawken, founder, Smith and Hawken).

So, what is the path to “encouraging the heart?”  Kouzes and Posner propose five tasks for leaders.  (These five tasks provide the framework for their longer, more comprehensive book:  The Leadership Challenge).

Leaders:

• challenge the process
• inspire a shared vision
• enable others to act
• model the way
• encourage the heart

And, the last of these five, “encourage the heart,” is the subject of this book.  They suggest a seven-step process to encourage the heart.  Here are the seven (with a little elaboration from me):

The seven essentials of encouraging:

#1:  Set clear standards — (People have to know exactly what is expected of them in order to fulfill their assignments).

#2:  Expect the best – (“Expect the worst,” and a leader will likely get the worst.  “Expect the best,” and a leader will get something much closer to a person’s best.  Thus, practice the “set-up-to-succeed” environment, not the “set-up-to-fail” environment).

#3:  Pay attention – (A leader has to pay attention – listen, and observe, in order to know how to successfully encourage each individual employee).

#4:  Personalize recognition – (This is a genuine breakthrough insight.  Do not give everyone the same “recognitions/rewards.”  This can be very counterproductive.  By choosing personalized rewards, the leader indicates that he/she knows each employee as an individual.  This is powerfully encouraging).

#5:  Tell the story – (The leader tells lost of stories of success – lots of stories of success — as part of the overarching story of the company or organization, which is told and retold over and over again.  This practice is morale building, culture building, and very encouraging!).

#6:  Celebrate together – (The leader makes sure there are plenty of “fun times’ of celebration, shared by all, after noteworthy milestones or accomplishments.

#7:  Set the example – (The leader has to do what the folks are expected to do.  “Follow the leader” is in fact what happens.  So, the leader makes sure that he/she is setting an example/providing a model to follow.  The leader practices DWYSYWD:  do what you say you will do).

Encouraging the Heart should be, in my opinion, the first book every leader should read.  Because, a leader is leading people!  And people need great and continual encouragement to get closer to their “best.”