Be genuine

I'm going to keep this short but I think it's important and it speaks volumes of you as a person.

An enduring lesson I learnt, early-on in my career, was from the COO of the company I worked for as a runner on the JSE Stock Exchange. He was, still is in fact, the finest human being I've ever met; the embodiment of humility and an unshakeable gentleman. In context he was a busy individual. His list of achievements were legion. Those included Senior Adviser to governments, central banks and industry titans. He was a pioneer of modern-banking in the country. Quite clearly his list of business / political contacts, friends, acquaintances and colleagues is legendary.

Although he's long since retired his greatest achievement, however, has never been certified, honoured, formally noted or financially rewarded. Notwithstanding, I will remember him foremost for his ability to see people as people first and not what they stood for; the depth of their pockets or their ability to contribute meaningfully to his day. His dedication was unwavering; he never forgot a face or a name and most impressively, he never forgot a birthday. His daily list of birthday-calls often exceeded one hundred (100) calls; most before breakfast... Many of those calls were to international numbers or to the switchboards of competing companies. An individual's circumstances or his / her place of employment, then & now, inconsequential.

This is his legacy & his mark has left an indelible impression on those fortunate enough to have crossed his path, however briefly and I, for one, am infinitely better for it.

  

The 'business meeting' farce

If your daily schedule is filled with 1 [one] hour-long business meetings then you're a time-waster; don't kid yourself.

What can't be said in 15 minutes on the phone or in 15-minutes across a table, cannot be adequately covered in an hour anyway. Fluffing your meetings with social niceties or verbal-sparring is habitual rather than meaningful. Here's the thing and this is important. We've become accustomed to wasting each other's time; in fact it's expected. 'Social etiquette' dictates a degree of formality that we cannot afford. Times have changed; business etiquette hasn't and that, more than anything else, is the frustration we accept as 'part of the package'.

Ever started your day with a glance at your meetings' schedule and wished you were someplace else? Yes? Why is that? It's your subliminal reaction to a dated concept that is neither functional nor productive.

The most efficient way to optimize your working-day is to insist on more effective communication. That includes better preparation and attention to detail from your staff, clientele and industry. Ditch the social drama; appreciate & respect your / my TIME; that most valuable, non-renewable commodity and get to the point. Listen well. If your replies are weak, waffled & off-point then you either haven't prepared very well or you don't really know what you're talking about. Wrapping-up a meeting with a soliloquy of what's been discussed moments before is an ignorant confirmation of your 'authority' only and an insult to the intelligence of the other attendees.

Business lunches? Social drama; nothing more. Clouding the agenda with good food & wine is political fencing and childlike. Have the good grace to conclude your 'business meeting' before you place an order; understand the social expectations and behave accordingly. Leave 'business' at the concierge's desk. Cocktail presentations - utter garbage! Can them; read more.

One last thing - a 15 minute+ presentation is forgotten before the EXIT door closes on the attendee's way out. Keep your musings short, precise and on-point. Everything else is fluffing and fluffing doesn't belong in business or your working-day.   

Mentorship and your role.

Mentoring a colleague is your most important selfless act at work. This ideal, above all else, determines the corporate culture and the relevance of the individuals who make up the corporate team. Over the course of my career, as an equities-trader in the early years and later as an executive, I've had the good fortune of working with / for people who gave of their time, experience and nuanced skills to make my own contributions more effective; more meaningful & perhaps even more profitable. Implicit or premised in that ideal is a more productive employee who, from a well of personal self-worth and professional acceptance, contributes more to the efficacy of the business as a whole; in a shorter span of time. Corporate culture, built on self-worth and professional integration, has longevity that transcends the individuals themselves. The company assumes an attractive vibrancy & becomes a magnet for talent.

Condense this collective self-worth down to its contribution in dollars & cents and the business takes care of itself. The very best leaders aspire to / derive their own stylistic leadership appeal almost always premised on the collective self-worth of the company. By implication teams / business units operate more efficiently and individuals, within those units, become masters of their own personal / professional investment and the company’s most effective marketing team. Productivity ratios improve exponentially as a result. Self-motivation is not a function of the annual company boot-camp or a top-down ‘rah-rah’ session at the local conference venue.

The benefits of a voluntary albeit encouraged, rather than a mandatory, mentorship program are wholescale. More often than not the mentor rethinks the basics of the job in a structured, critical way and often improves his / her output as a consequence. Passing on applicable skills & or the tutoring of an applied technique, is the most fulfilling / important function of the more experienced employee. The most effective mentorship ‘programs’ apply up the chain of command to include the individuals responsible for the management of the company. This bottom-up approach is, by definition, voluntary. By way of example on the company boards I either chair or attend the first item on the agenda is almost always an extended welcome to new attendees at the meeting; filled seats [two (2)] left vacant for anyone from within the company to attend. Who can deny the subsequent benefits of transparency; the accountability of management & staff and the lucid, first-hand flow of information down the ranks? Management-style is non-exclusionary, rather than one of simple participation. It's a nuanced motivation and premised on an open-mind rather than coerced through the HR department.

Benefits specific to the mentored individual are self-explanatory. Incidentally younger individuals have an equal obligation, perhaps more so in context, to mentor older, less-experienced individuals and almost always in industries dominated by faster rates of change brought on by technology. Experience, in this context, is a micro-function of time in the company-seat rather than of chronological age. Reciprocally an older mentor has equally valuable insights, both in life-skills or, more directly, on related industry-process. This communication stream is reciprocal and lessons are continually learnt and passed-on. It’s an attitude critical to the longevity of the company and all too often dismissed by the unimaginative as the function of a defined job-description rather than as a consequence of volunteered, selfless behaviour.

Unstructured mentoring / job-assistance is instilled / trite within the corporate culture of ALL successful start-ups and seemingly less prevalent in mature companies where personal-investment, at board level, is less critical for the associated individual’s own net worth. A titled-position, in this case, becomes the cornerstone of success and the route to diminishing returns rather than a lasting-legacy at retirement. It's an opportunity lost.

In closing human-nature responds to choice far more effectively than it does coercion and therein resides the frailty of the annual business conference. Swinging on ropes or building a raft to cross an inconsequential body of water is an absurdity and an insult to the intelligence of the delegates compelled to attend. Consider too the transfer of motivational-speak from on high at structured management feedback sessions. That too is lip-syncing the meaningless to the meaningful when some imagination and an open mind from the top-down would be far more inspiring and ultimately more effective for all participants with a common goal.

  

Searching for relevance

We live in a strange world and quite often in the shallow-end of the Sea of Mediocrity. Keeping head above water is a constant near-drowning for social relevance; a self-imposed line-in-the-sand - the fountain of ALL happiness & modern success. Perversely it's a demeaning, life-whisper that buoys us on to greater feats of triviality; more obsessive consumption and the accumulation of material wealth against which we're measured in envy's currency. Searching for relevance, at its most obscene, is also the root of failure.

If relevance is a subjective handle, internalised & a function of our own whims and foibles, then by extrapolation, we are our own judge & jury. Herein lies the self-destructive time-bomb we defuse later with regret when it's too late to make amends. Bizarrely we sit in personal judgement through the eyes of our peers rather than as a reflected image in the mirror. Searching for relevance is almost always unattainable in the critical eye of someone else who isn't given the chance to refute the evidence presented.

Whatever we say or like to say about ourselves, particularly in the social-spheres, we dress for others mostly, are motivated by the desire for approbation & crave an acceptance into our professional / special-interest Hall of Fame - the happiness at the end of the grind. Getting that recognition can, however, be fast-tracked by social-connection or with some money and that's a false relevance if ever there was.

Fast-tracking is none more obvious than in the field of photography. In our modern, digital world photography has arguably lost some of the mystique of old. We've become accustomed to instant gratification & the back-end of the camera is the kicker to instant success or a ticket to whatever; terminal irrelevance. Fast-tracked success, behind the shutter, is a social-media phenom & a modern social-media ruse to the artificial relevance of the untalented. Where social-media relevance is claimed by a show of thumbs; acceptance becomes an unaccounted / majority-ruled show-of-hands. Performance is then a socialite's rubber-stamp rather than one of critical acclaim. Financially-successful, fast-tracked amateurs, flaunting talentless perfection behind a learned composition and a top-end camera, bask in false relevance. Looking through the glass is very different from seeing the artful composition of a creative masterpiece. Where subjects are a composite success in themselves rather than the result of the creative talents of the point & shoot photographer then, in context, relevance is false. Notwithstanding, if relevance is subjective or a self-regulated level of achievement, then false relevance is always in the eye of the interested observer.

If relevance is life's hack or a social-mask of paper-mache then that success is defined by false concealment - a single act; 5 minutes of fame.

Creative photography isn't a fast-tracked paint-by-numbers, on good glass, but a window to the soul and the final product of Self. True success and enlightened relevance is embedded in the fabric that is true-Self; anything less is superficial social-acceptance and a ticket to the shallow-end.

Is your boss a bully?

It's Friday and like most of you I'm looking forward to the weekend. Why would that be? Is it because we get to do what we want to do, with the people we want to do it with and at a pace we choose to do it at? How about Sunday night? I bet you're checking email & or planning the week ahead. Either way most of us dread the Monday-blues & the constraints of being placed back on the clock.

So if we define 'get busy living' as doing the things that matter, with the people who count, then most of us are living life in short bursts only. In fact most of us are 'getting ready to die' and that, in a nutshell, is all that is wrong with the world.

I did some work for a company which continues to exist, as a going-concern, solely on the momentum of past successes rather than from good leadership & empowered staff. Non-management staff are expected to contract a working day / week / year within a defined set of time-parameters. Benefits are limited to the statutory minimum; leave-days included. At the end of the business cycle; usually a calendar year for most of us and no different in this company, 'deserving-staff' are eligible for a bonus. Individuals are evaluated on their specific KPIs & compensated accordingly or so we're told. Invariably most bonuses amount to not much more than the obligatory 13th . From time to time, unit-heads require staff to work longer hours / weekends & so on. Overtime pay is not a consideration & falls outside 'company policy' - ie: staffers are not to expect immediate compensation for the 'extra effort' but would be 'remembered' at bonus time.. Sound familiar?

Middle-management are managed a little differently. Same work-hour stipulations are applicable but enforcement for non-compliance is generally less severe / even lax. However, work considered obligatory but 'outside' standard office -hours is rigorously enforced and by outside-stipulated hours I mean weekends mostly & always at the whim of the executive. Any non-compliance is generally career-ending. Compensation is commensurate, to some degree, and bonuses are more generous.

Senior management, in this company, describes a single individual - the CEO. The quasi-executive constitutes the CEO and a handful of long-serving individuals drawn from the ranks of middle-management. Once or twice a year the CEO addresses the staff, offsite, most often to promote a new project or to commend the executive & occasionally, present the 'Employee of the Year' award to a deserving recipient; amusingly the CEO himself a recipient on one occasion. These functions are mandatory & compliance is informally, if not universally, considered to be the key 'KPI' criterion at year end. Management can only be described as totalitarian & generally premised on narcissism / trickle-down micro-management. Recruitment, employee-advancement, operations, time-allocation & so on is an implied function of middle-management but almost always at the discretion of the CEO only.

The staff-compliment is, as a consequence, continually exposed to a paint-by-numbers strategy, imposed down the ranks, usually flawed in application and subject to change at a moment's notice. Employees with more aptitude are relied on to implement new projects & more often than not, moved on to the next project before completing the first. Unsuccessful projects are considered the responsibility of the originating employee even if the originating employee is not associated with the operational aspects of the project post his / her move onto the next project. Successful projects are a confirmation of management prowess..  the originating employee notwithstanding.

Interestingly, people responsible for sales / revenue generation & or client liaison operate within strict budgetary constraints. Cost-controls are actively managed and constitutes the main body of the quarterly unit-reviews. Trickle-down micro-management, w.r.t resource allocation, then becomes a numbers-driven determination rather than an operational / strategic funding exercise. Notwithstanding, the CEO is compensated at above-market rates and certainly above his competency-level. Perversely he spends significantly more on international travel; entertainment; accommodation etc. than the entire sales-team does collectively. These actions are generously rubber-stamped by the quasi-executive who depend, somewhat impotently, on the CEO's good graces at bonus 'remembrance'-day and even more perversely, by implication, on their own generosity as members of the remuneration committee responsible for the CEO's annual-compensation / bonus.

It's a systemic conflict of interest, in an inherently flawed hierarchy of bullying, where the company narrative exists to service the executive only. If your company culture is derived in the pockets of the executive have the courage to 'get busy living'; somewhere else.





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Leadership in Space & Time

If you have toiled under the command of a [traditional manager], in a traditional business, then it must be very clear to you that most current business-structures lag the technological advances we take for granted elsewhere.

We have instant global access to written correspondence / mainstream communication / social interaction by application; virtual face-to-face meetings & so on. Imagination & innovation is a cheaper, faster, better mockery of yesterday's constraints. How about ordering a tailored-suit online? Done.  [BTW: Check out the new app. [Israeli], currently in β, - measures your exact physical fit and relays the 3D-map to your chosen designer / tailor / retailer whatever & the SP - pays..]

Here's the thing though. Why are we still expected to commute to a place of work, dock at an assigned piece of commercial real estate and deliver a contracted service / skill, within a defined time-frame, under conditions of consequence premised on time-at-the-desk rather than on output?

Image by: www.teluguone.com

Most of us live in terminal-failure. We get up each day; prepare for the work-day; commute to an office; fulfill our time-sheet responsibilities at a desk; commute home; eat & sleep - REPEAT. Older generations looped in the same way but quite often at the same place of work for the duration of their working lives. If they were lucky they enjoyed promotion; attained a level of incompetence - retired. Later generations are paradoxically in a constant flux of false-security. Buying promotion through regular job-hopping changes the office-interface perhaps but is still TIME-terminal & by TIME-terminal I mean having to do what you have to rather than what you want to do.

The lucky few find a paying-niche that satisfies a passion or a talent & 'never work a day in their lives' or something along those lines. So if most of us fall short of perfect & if most of us go about our day as best we can & almost always in terminal-failure, does Leadership play a role?

The answer to that is yes and on so many different levels. Let's take a step back for a minute and look at business from the boardroom-down rather than from the more familiar flog-them-up. 

A Board of Directors, apart from fiduciary duty, has a singular function only. [BTW: The boardroom is an assigned-desk, on good carpets, for a group of people with a specific skill-set. We're not talking demi-gods ..] That singular function is the operational / strategic oversight of PROFIT-growth or Up - Revenue / Down - costs. The associated airs & graces, on the top-floor, are a false brand-building the rest of the building is conditioned to emulate. It's called 'motivation' an obsolete concept if ever there was.

5-years at a Business School teaches one important truth only. Here it is - Increase / raise productivity or output per unit of labour [Yip - you're a unit of labour ] & the cost of doing business falls. That equals PROFIT. PROFIT equates to bonuses - money-motivation - more time-at-the-desk - upward-mobility concessions & so on.

Leadership recognises / embraces the current environment and is, wholly, outcomes-driven. If outcome is premised on results, efficiencies & productivity then here's another business-truth. We know most commercial-space operates at a 43% occupancy. [Note the unoccupied space in your office?] We know traffic-congestion impacts people: TIME-lost mostly. A smart leader uses technology to:

• discover inefficient space utilisation & in, most cases, results in a down-scaling of the real-estate footprint.
• change the space-allocation structure. Work-stations, rather than closed office-space & always allocated on walk-in efficiencies.
• source satellite office-space [outside the business-hubs] & / or promote a culture of work-from-home. TIME opportunity-cost is placed back in the hands of the empowered employee & out of the control of middle-'management'; an absurdity in design anyway.

If effective Leadership frees up company resources; creates efficiencies and empowers employees who loses?

Change - why?

Most Leadership Consultants / Self-Help Gurus premiss their inspiration on CHANGE. Change who you are; what you do; how you do it .. & so on. The thing is that's simplistic, at best, misleading, most times, particularly in the business space.

Here's what you're not told. If you're not 're-birthed' then most of the 'changes' you implement are a window-display of who you are anyway under different stimulation / motivation & nothing more. That's a little disturbing, not so? Then again I suppose you could take a sabbatical and spend a year or two chanting atop the Himalayas, eating berries, collected sparingly of course and yes, you might enjoy a 'rebirth' of sorts; at least that's what you'll tell us when you get back down to planet-real. That's fine and your mode of discovery is not necessarily my mode of travel but that's not exactly practical for the rest of us though is it? BTW: - on the om thing; have you really changed much or have you just dug a little deeper into the fabric that is you in the first place. My guess it's more digging - less metamorphosis.

The best & worst book I've ever had the good fortune / misfortune of reading was handed to me by the then CEO at the annual company- 'team-building' conference. Is there anything more useless or less-useful than 'team-building'? The book entitled 'Who moved my cheese?' by Dr Spencer Johnson [1998] is profoundly ineffective but annoyingly true in context and possibly the most deeply disturbing 'CHANGE' narrative you'll ever read. Read it if you must; don't if 'profoundly ineffective' is more useful to you than 'deeply disturbing' might be.  Either way this is the lesson in a few paraphrased words - 'If you don't keep pace with change; you'll get left behind..' Fair enough.

'If you don't keep pace with change; you'll get left behind.' or something along those lines... In context that makes perfect sense of course. If employees don't embark on a lifelong program of Professional Skills Development then, quite obviously, they'll lack the skill-set to participate meaningfully in their chosen industry / profession for any length of time.

Who decides? 

'If you don't keep pace with change; you'll get left behind.' applied, as it was in our case, to the individual, rather than the employee, is noteworthy in many ways. In our case 'Who moved my cheese.' targeted us as individuals ['team building'..?] rather than as colleagues. We were encouraged to collectively contribute to the company's future growth and success. I remember a great deal of resentment at the time. 'Change who you are' to 'keep pace with the job' was considered derogatory and in that context fell on deaf ears.

Nobody, to a person, wanted to be told that they had to CHANGE to meet a standard. An imposed standard was considered, rightly I think, as nothing more than a moving goal-post; an unintended insult & deeply divisive. That's not leadership.