Speaking of Leadership
Dan on Twitter- danmulhern: Mi Repubs claim to be biz-like. But what biz person wld not spend $ where profit looks sure? Pure wimps on tourism! #michigan
- danmulhern: Sandra Bullock Leads http://www.danmulhern.com/wordpress/category/rfl/
- danmulhern: 1st trip to Tigers' spring training. Very cool.
- danmulhern: This week's radio show on the very cool & changing world of #communitycolleges listen sat 7am EST http://bit.ly/8zSTB0
- danmulhern: #leadchange A very interesting movement on LinkedIn that's about leading from who you are, not from what your position is!
Aug
30
Friends,
I finished a speech at a health care conference last week, took questions, then had time for one of my own. I asked: “What will you take away, what will you think or do differently?” A man raised his hand: “On Monday, I’m going to ask my team what I can do to help them?” His tone said it was a great a-ha. His brilliance – like most brilliance – spoke to common sense, joyfully rediscovered. Haven’t we all counseled a friend, child, or a girlfriend or boyfriend with the question-exclamation: “Well, why don’t you just ask them?” Duh!
The next day I was delightedly reading The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life. On page 73, Benjamin Zander, conductor and author, inserts this question as a chapter subtitle: How much greatness are we willing to grant? It’s a chapter in which he urges conductors – of musicians or others – to have the guts-and-humility to invite them to shape the performance and shape the conducting.
I like the two attitudinal shifts implied. First, it’s not the leader who is charged with greatness, not about the conductor who, ironically makes no music herself. Zander recognizes that before him may be seated silent players who have studied the composer, genre, or the very piece he is conducting. Or, they may hear in their section of the orchestra something he can’t hear from his podium. At my staff room table, there are always people who have executed tactics better than I. And people who could not just do their work but help me to lead. But do I come with that mentality all the time? No. But, I’ll aspire to again.
Second, I love this idea of “granting greatness.” If the leader posits greatness, expects it, looks for it, wants it, grant it then it’s 100 times more likely to appear. I think our greatest failure as leaders and parents is coming into each engagement with too low expectations, too little belief, too much giving up on the greatness of every person at the table. The leader’s first job is the job of faith: to believe in their greatness, even – no especially – when it’s not easy to do.
Zander uses “white sheets,” a blank page left on each musician’s music stand to elicit their insights on his conducting. If you conduct a team, you could put “white sheets” at each place at the staff meeting table with the heading from my friend from health care: “I’m going to ask my team what I can do to help them.”
It’s a way to show faith in their greatness, as well as your own, to
Lead with your best self!
Dan
Aug
23
2010 – Make it Great – Retreat with Dan
Filed Under All Posts, Retreats | Leave a Comment
Start 2010 (yes it’s coming) with a shot of new energy, focus and learning. I’ll be hosting retreats on January 7-8 in Detroit and then January 14-17 in New Orleans. Send an email to mulhern@danmulhern.com if you’d like to learn more.
Aug
23
Quit Your J-O-B!
Filed Under All Posts, Reading for Leading | 25 Comments
Friends,
We have to have filters through which we see the world. Otherwise, we’d be overwhelmed by it all. Our filters are unique, shaped by our families and cultures, our own predispositions, education and philosophy; and our filters are colored by our inner wells of hope and love, fear and hurt. So, for example, you might have a filter this morning on email that frames it as, “an annoyance and a waste of time,” or a filter that frames the email – okay, this is hard to imagine – so that you think: “Isn’t it great that all these people want to be in touch with me?!!!”
One filter that 99% of us share is: “I want to have a good J-O-B.” A job is like a big slot out there that we slide into, which we hope will fit. We get the job, do most of it, and the check comes every two weeks. Maybe one day we step up the ladder to a new box/job that we slide into to do what that job description says.
I think that basic filter of the J-O-B serves us poorly these days. I like this view of earning a living better: “I’m going to create so much value in the world that I WILL be well compensated.” My activity to earn a living might include a job (or two), or a contract or two or three, or stuff I sell, or services, or a duplex I rent, or many combinations of these activities. But it’s not a box into which I fit.
A friend of mine is a very successful entrepreneur who sold the business he toiled to build. The company endures, employing over 40 people. He and I were talking about J-O-B-s. He said, “When I interviewed people, I would say, ‘Why do you want to work here?’” Almost every time, they would say things like, “I need a job,” and “I like your company,” and “I’ve heard good things about your place,” and “I’ve always wanted to be in this industry.” He said that almost never did he hear, “I want to work here because I know I can add value to what you do.” Or “I like what your company is all about and I want to make it better.” They saw the company as a thing and the job as a thing. As an entrepreneur he saw the company not as a thing but as a constant activity, risking, pursuing, calculating, creating, partnering, competing to make something better and the whole, profitable. And he was looking for people who’d see the job not as a static thing to occupy but as a place from which to create, add value, find savings, and wow customers. Isn’t the difference between the “thing” and the “activity” stark?
Michigan, in particular, is dying for entrepreneurs – within and without – to make us alive, to seize opportunities that exist in tough times, to risk, and to fight to make risks winnable. Filling the box of the J-O-B – especially when there are not enough jobs – will not be enough. So…
I’d invite you to quit your J-O-B today. And begin – or begin again – to examine how you can add value every day to others in their work and lives; don’t fill a box, but instead create something great. It’s the heart of entrepreneurism: to create value for other people, for which they are happy to pay you in return. It’s also the heart of the most important work we do – raising children; that’s not a job but an extraordinary activity of creation and Value adding!
Lead with your best self!
Dan
Aug
16
At the Boarding Counter – Panic and Abundance
Filed Under All Posts, Reading for Leading | 11 Comments
Friends,
Imagine it’s February 1, and you are sitting at the gate, waiting for your already-delayed flight to leave for Orlando and a long-awaited break. You’re reading a cheap novel, when you start to overhear people at the counter. “I’ve already been bumped once. You can’t do this to me!” says one angry soul. “Sir, we’re overbooked, but I’m sure I can get you on.” “You better.” Another pair of voices, “M’am, we have the same seat assignment on our boarding passes.” “I’m sorry” the gate attendant says kindly, “we’ve had a little trouble with our computer, and this has happened a couple times. Let me see your boarding passes.” You exchange anxious looks with an older woman across from you and check your boarding pass, realizing it’s not going to tell you if it’s a duplicate. You try to tune out the still-angry man, who’s “already been bumped once,” and is now saying, “even if your incompetent airline has to take someone’s boarding pass back, you better get me on that flight.” “Sir, we’re going to take care of you,” the gate attendant says. “Right!” says a woman in a velvet track suit, “Like you did to me when you called me up here and told me my online seat assignment wouldn’t be honored.” You look around. No one has their nose in a book any more. People who were sitting are now standing, people standing are edging closer to the boarding counter, where there is now a line of six people. The man across from you says, “I’ve got my seat assignment, but my wife was meeting me and she’s late, and they wouldn’t give me her pass, cuz she has to check in with photo ID; those damned terrorists are still screwing us over.” You wonder: What are the chances I’m going to get to Orlando tonight?
That to me is just like the health care debate right now. Hurried conditions. Uncertainty. Apparent scarcity. A couple people vocally and angrily express their fears and soon a contagion of fear and scarcity-thinking tears through the “boarding area” of the country watching health care reform. Downsizing companies can feel that way, too. The same flames of fear can leap through a crowd of adults at a senior-parents college night or at a pre-season tryout meeting, ignited by a highly emotional critic who says “I know for a fact that school [or coach] has their own private list of who gets in.” A job-application line can feel the same way. Scarcity + vocal anger = waves of panic. And, man, does everybody’s work get hard as their minds “flood” with emotion.
Have you ever tried working when someone is yelling at you?
In the future, I plan to write about what the “authorized leader” (the ticket agent, coach, teacher, job provider, congressman) might do in such circumstances. But today I want to suggest a different point for ALL of us as leading-followers. What if we came from a standpoint not of scarcity but of abundance? What might we come up with? Here’s a partial list of our health care abundance. If we can somehow cultivate our awareness of it, I believe, we can radically change our problem solving ability:
- We have phenomenal health care systems: nurses, doctors, meds, processes, hospitals, alternative approaches, IT systems, and excellent for- and not-for-profit organizations. America is rich with capability.
- We have a fantastic representative democracy with people we have elected, an imperfect system that’s grown for over two centuries; we have forums, multiple media outlets, blogs, and countless other ways to talk, listen, and where helpful, to vote. Our democracy has (we have) proven again: we’re alive and well!
- Brilliant researchers – in universities, think tanks, foundations, corporations, etc., and rich data that gets better every single day.
- Examples to study throughout the world. Finally,
- The ability to shift to an abundance mentality: focus on what we can do, rather than the myriad ways we’ll fall short of perfect cost-containment, perfect access, and perfect improvement.
Imagine the different kind of problem solving we’d have: at tryouts, at job application lines, at down-sizing companies, and in our health care reform efforts if we came first from a sense of abundance! How might you shift the way you’re looking at your situations – to emphasize capability first – as you
Lead with your best self!
Dan
follow me on www.twitter.com/danmulhern
Aug
9
Abundance and Grit
Filed Under All Posts, Radio | Leave a Comment
This Saturday’s show should be very interesting, as we discuss how important of an abundance mentality and the virtue of grit are to great leadership.
Consider the health care debate! Right now it’s characterized by anything but a sense of abundance about it. Fear and scarcity eat at every corner of the discussion. On the other hand, there’s perseverance: Congressman John Dingell has introduced a bill for universal coverage in every session in his 50+ year career. Senator Kennedy has been equally persistent. Of course, there are those on the other side who have shown similar persistence in fighting it off. What do you think about “abundance” and “grit” in your efforts to lead? How important are they? Comment here, or join in on this Saturday’s show.
Aug
9
This Ain’t No Tea Party
Filed Under All Posts, Reading for Leading | 57 Comments
Friends,
It’s been said that one of the greatest fears humans have is to speak in front of an audience. If that’s a fear or a recurring bad dream, how about this for a nightmare: You have the microphone. You’ve convened a meeting to hear from people. Five-hundred are before you; they’re overflowing the room. Before you can explain the ground rules and offer some thoughts, people start yelling at you – individually and in collective chants. And they’re yelling at each other, too. At one point a man comes out of the crowd, stands about 6 feet away, and proceeds to berate you, among other things calling you a “fraud.” Okay, wake up, now.
Want to run for congress? J
That nightmare is the reception Congressman John Dingell received on Friday, a month after his 83rd birthday, at a town hall meeting he convened on health care. Congressman Dingell has been throughout his fifty-four years in Congress dedicated to “regular folks” in his working class Downriver Detroit district. He’s campaigned – and represented people between elections – with an open ear. I’ve watched him listen to people, and call them “sir” or “ma’m” as though they were the President or a senator – whether they were children, seniors, blue collar workers, people with disabilities, or anyone else you might imagine an “arrogant congressman” would quickly look beyond. He’s been a gentle man, and someone who takes his duty as a democratic representative as though God and George Washington were watching his every move. When I think of America fighting for democracy in Viet Nam or Iraq or Nicaragua or Europe in World War II, my image of what representative democracy looks like is John Dingell (Gerald Ford and my friend and mentor Sander Levin typify it as well). It has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with partisanship. It has everything to do with civility, reason, and the discipline of rational debate. I’m proud but not surprised that at the end of the ruckus on Friday, Congressman Dingell held a second town hall, because so many had not been able to get into the room for the first.
Although I’m very interested in the health care debate, I’m more interested for this column in how it’s happening than what it’s about. I had a professor who used to say, “there’s a thin veneer of civilization” painted atop the behavior of groups of humans. The veneer wears thin these days. This debate is so vital. The values on both sides of the issue are deeply held and deserve to be fully aired. But let’s be clear: The pinnacle of American history was not the Boston Tea Party. The tea party was an act of defiance and held awesome symbolic power. It helped win the right to be represented. . . By people like John Dingell or Pete Hoekstra or anyone else who has the courage, drive and savvy to connect with enough voters (not colonists) who give them the privilege of serving. The peak of the birth of American representative democracy was not a tea party (or the Chicago convention of 1968) but the Constitutional Convention – and the hundreds of town hall discussions that Adams and Jefferson and their colleagues had with those they represented. Let’s have those kinds of discussions.
It’s not just politics. Sometimes at work and at home, people get more and more frustrated. They don’t believe they can be heard or that their voice matters. At some point the may get “mad as hell” and say, “I’m not going to take it any more.” Better that we listen well enough that we don’t reach that point. So, who’s feeling left out in your world? And if they finally blow, it’s vital that we actively listen then – with patience and calm. And return to the issues. And return to the issues. And seek first to understand. And seek win-win. And if we find ourselves on the other side – feeling left out and unheard – let’s hope we can find a more civil and useful way to engage. We’d do better to leave screaming to children and adolescents. Democracies, families and businesses run a lot better on disciplined dialogue.
Have fun engaging as you
Lead with your best self,
Dan
follow me on www.twitter.com/danmulhern
Aug
2
Lacrosse, Warren Buffet, the New and the Old
Filed Under All Posts, Reading for Leading | 12 Comments
Friends,
“Follow me on Twitter.” I put it at the bottom of my email messages now. I believe in it, really. Blips. Quick messages. Tiny pearls. Good information to get. Good info 2 share. Speed, speed. . .spd, spd, spd. No, LOL here. A culture of perma-ADD? R U w/ me on this?
Maybe pushing past fifty years old is changing everything for me, because I keep thinking that we’re in a crazy hurry. We’re playing in business and life like my son’s inexperienced lacrosse team – trying to score instantly; not having the patience and experience to set up, spread out, and pass the ball; or on defense, lurching after the ball – left then right – instead of setting the defense. And the boys’ spirited but inexperienced, college-student coaches inadvertently drive the boys’ pace to near-panic levels. Tons of energy – yes – but tons of wasted energy. It’s way bigger than lacrosse! Warren Buffett, no spring chicken, tried to warn us. He’s always looking for long term value, not insta-returns. Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns should have been listening. Jim Collins (author of Good to Great and Built to Last) quietly put out a little book this year, How the Mighty Fall: And Why Some Companies Never Give In). One of his major lessons is that some average and some (that he wrote about as) Great Companies blew themselves out of the water by growing faster than their talent pool could keep up. And his research has repeatedly revealed that companies sustain success much more often with steady, in-the-trenches CEO successors than by bringing in hotshot outsiders to turn everything upside down. Knowledge, experience, and discipline matter.
One of the most regular mistakes of “everyday leaders” was pointed out to me this weekend by an RFL reader who is 59 and unemployed. He was infuriated by a column purporting to help older workers find a job. The major advice was essentially “hide your age.” For example, on your resume only list your last 10-15 years of work experience, and don’t put dates anywhere on it. Now this guy is a tremendous writer, reader, and learner, who’s had experience in a number of fields. And check your stereotypes at the door; he’s on Facebook and Twitter, too. He knows his gray hair is killing him, but he’s asking why he should hide, in his great words, “my vulnerability . . . my venerability.” He’s having a whale of a time getting over the threshold. I wonder: So, how do you quantify the value of wisdom? And is it not hugely obvious that as a society we have grossly tilted the scales of judgment toward speed, speed, speed, youth, youth and more yth.
On the lacrosse field sideline, I was teasing a 13-year old girl for her relaxed pose in one of those new-fangled collapsible outdoor chairs with the cup-holders and padded seats. The girl jumped up and said, “I’m sorry. You can sit here.” It wasn’t my chair, and I was only teasing, so I said no. And she said, “No, really. You should sit here.” I thought to myself: she’s got some good parents who’ve taught her respect for her elders. It was refreshing. I think Warren Buffett would have approved. Maybe she – and we? – will help the pendulum swing back towards a culture that balances the need for speed and the infatuation with skin-deep youth and “new,” with a view for the long run, for patience, discipline and the appreciation for wisdom.
Follow me on Twitter, but maybe also, be patient this week with someone who forms their thoughts slowly and carefully, or who mostly sticks to their cubicle, but who would probably be happy to share the wisdom they’ve gained if you’d take the time to
Lead with your best self!
Dan
p.s. If someone is looking for an exceptional 59-year old writer, I’ve got the guy for you!
Product Specials
Everyday Leadership: Getting Results in Business, Politics, and Life (7 Disc Audio CD)
Everyday Leadership offers strategies to improve leadership skills, achieve results, and gain greater satisfaction in these hectic times. It speaks to the everyday leader, whether that person is a principal, pastor, parent, or CEO.
$34.99
$24.99