By Linda Henman, Ph.D.

During game six of the World Series, Cardinal player Matt Holliday made an error that would have embarrassed a high school player—he dropped an easy fly ball to left field. As he and Rafael Furcal collided, the game looked more like a Three Stooges episode than a competition involving world-class athletes.

Why? Two words. “It’s mine.” Holliday didn’t say them.

The same thing happens in organizations every day. So called “teams,” which really resemble committees, fail to determine areas of accountability among their players.  Metaphorically, they too drop the ball. No one steps up, yells “Mine!” and makes things happen. Instead, members of the group plod along, neglect defining roles, overlook common goals, and don’t hold themselves and each other accountable.

What’s a leader to do? Tony La Russa looked down and shook his head. My baseball expert adviser son-in-law, Pat, tells me he probably also cussed. Neither strategy will help your team.

By Linda Henman, Ph.D.

Since referrals are the coinage of my realm, I recently asked an executive coaching client, Greg, the CFO of a large company, to refer me to another executive in his organization. Apparently it worked, because a week later one of the vice presidents set up a meeting with me.

When I met the vice president, I asked what had influenced him to choose me as his coach. Without a moment’s hesitation, he replied, “Greg said you really made him uncomfortable.”

“What a stunning endorsement!”  With referral sources like this, who needs detractors?

During our coaching tenure, Greg made significant changes, which resulted in enhanced performance in his CFO role, his positioning to take over the CEO role, and The Business Journal naming him CFO of the year. Greg made success his goal, not comfort.

By Linda Henman, Ph.D.

Unless you’re an only child, born to hermits who live in the remotest part of the world, you know the age-old wisdom of settling disputes with the “rock, paper, scissors” form of decision making. Theorists, academicians, and scholars have filled the shelves with lesser-known and less expedient forms of decision making, but this one reigns.

In less than five seconds—less than fifteen if you’re doing two out of three—a dyad or group can settle the question of who will make a critical decision. (I have seen executives groups take five months to do the same thing, with no greater payoff).  Sometimes these executives groups can’t decide who should decide; at other times, they think the group should decide but can’t
pick among the alternatives.

Who owns the decision? That’s the first question. Groups should make decisions only when the complexity of the decision demands everyone’s expertise, but not otherwise. “Buy in” from everyone isn’t usually realistic or necessary, and taking the time to get it can cost in lost opportunities.

Analysis paralysis cripples business. Does fear stand in the way? Usually, but spending more time ensuring 100% accuracy usually doesn’t offer a huge benefit. When you’re 80% ready, move.  Whatever advantage you gain by using the time and resources to gain the other 20% will usually not compensate for what you’ve lost.

By Linda Henman, Ph.D.

As the old joke goes, a reporter asked a business owner, “How many people work here?” “About half,” he responded.

Recent research indicates that estimate might have been too ambitious for today’s companies because many leaders reported that only about 29% of their workforce shows signs of strong engagement. What do the other two thirds do? And whom should we blame?

Leadership. If you tolerate low engagement, you have to ask yourself what culture you have helped to create or perpetuate. In their pivotal work on excellence, the authors of In Search of Excellence posited that the following eight attributes and behaviors caused and sustained success:

1. A bias for action

1. Staying close to the customer

1. Autonomy and entrepreneurship

1. Productivity through people

1. Executives’ “hands on” approach

1. Sticking with the knitting: doing only what the business does best

1. Little bureaucracy

1. Dedication to the company’s values

These eight attributes don’t just spring forth from the earth fully developed; leaders have to plant the seeds and then carefully cultivate them, consciously and consistently acting as the attentive gardener.

By Linda Henman, Ph.D.

For some time now, accounts of the heroic deeds of the Navy SEAL team have dominated the news. The acronym “SEAL” describes this special forces members’ abilities to operate in the sea or air and on the land, but their ability to work underwater truly separates the SEALs from most other military units. Navy SEALs deploy on a wide variety of missions, including direct action, special reconnaissance operations, unconventional warfare, foreign internal defense, hostage rescue, and counter-terrorism.

These faceless, nameless heroes have much to teach us about exceptional performance and valiance.

SEALs must pass prove themselves exceptional before they can enter the program. Once admitted, they subject themselves to weeks of specialized, grueling training. Few, however, realize what happens then: Hell Week.

A typical SEALs class will lose 70-80% of its members before Hell Week ends. No one can deny the physical demands of the week, which includes being wet and staying awake for days at a time, but most say it’s the mental challenge that breaks them.

Corporate America can learn some lessons from the SEALS. They don’t admit people who are less than stellar, and then they set such high standards, that even excellent candidates must constantly prove themselves to stay among the elite.

If you want exceptional performance, you need to learn three lessons from the SEALS.

By Linda Henman, Ph.D.

St. Louis’ great philosopher / baseball player once said, “You can observe a lot just by watching.” I don’t know that he had business leaders in mind when he waxed philosophical, but executives should take heed nonetheless. The alternative is what is known as “bounded awareness.”

Bounded awareness describes a phenomenon that occurs when cognitive blinders prevent a person from seeing, seeking, using, or sharing highly relevant, easily accessible, and readily perceivable information during a decision-making process. It can happen at various points in the decision-making process when decision-makers don’t gather relevant data, consider critical facts, or understand the relevance of the information they have. It can also happen later when these decision makers don’t share information with others, thereby limiting general knowledge. Often executives put on their decision-making blinders when they become insensitive to changing environments.

What gauges does your team use to foresee the future? What data would help them predict strategic changes for your organization? If you and they don’t know what you’re looking for, you run the risk that your blinders will lead to your being blindsided. Here are some steps to help you increase your awareness of the dangers that may lurk in your corner of the world:

By Linda Henman, Ph.D.

The time during Abraham Lincoln leadership commemorates a dark time in our nation’s history—a time characterized by chaos, change, and strife among those who shared a common nation, mutual friendships, and joint ancestry.

Decades of growing strife between North and South erupted in civil war on April 12, 1861 when Confederate artillery opened fire on Fort Sumter. Fort Sumter surrendered 34 hours later. Union forces would try for nearly four years to take it back.

Due largely to the leadership of Abraham Lincoln, the nation recovered and prospered. His ability to lead during chaos molded the nation and set the gold standard for leadership. But it wasn’t easy.

Lincoln had taken office five weeks before the shot that started the Civil War. At that time he assembled a cabinet of talented men—a team of rivals. By marshalling the talents of these men, Lincoln preserved the Union and won the war.

The cabinet consisted of strong men—all virtuosos in their own right—but in this case, the prairie lawyer from Illinois was the most notable virtuoso of them all. Here are Lincoln’s lessons for leading during chaos: 

By Linda Henman, Ph.D.

You don’t want your operating plan to concentrate on the past—to focus on the reflection in the rearview mirror. You also don’t want it to be a distortion of future possibilities—like an image in a fun-house mirror. Instead, your operating plan should be a kaleidoscope that exhibits various symmetrical patterns that reflect the loose bits of information you have aggregated. As you rotate it with new information and contingencies, new patterns and answers will appear. It is a look forward to the “how’s.” It includes the programs your organization will complete within a year to reach your strategic objectives in four major areas: finance, customers, processes, and people. It specifies how you will synchronize these four moving parts to achieve the objectives, negotiate the trade-offs, seize opportunities, and plan for contingencies.

The operating plan goes beyond last year’s budget to include challenges and opportunities that didn’t exist in last year’s reality. Too often the budget becomes number and gaming exercises designed to help silo mangers protect their own best interest. Frequently budgets represent little more than an increase based on the previous year’s results and don’t engender the requisite tough analysis and dialogue to determine what the financial goals really should be for the year. Budgets also limit growth and innovation if a new opportunity “isn’t in the budget.”

Change and opportunities exist outside the organization. Activities that can lead to both occur inside the business, but results depend on those outside—your customers. They will demand that you surpass competence and strive for excellence. They will require value and a driving force that separates you from your competition.

By Linda Henman, Ph.D.

Much of my consulting and coaching work involves industries and functions that must follow the rules—exactly and profoundly. The SEC demands compliance from publicly traded companies; specific industries require adherence to prescribed protocols; and best practices dictate practical approaches. All good.

However, overusing a strength creates a weakness. People who operate in regulated industries and roles can, if they’re not careful and vigilant, start to develop rigidity in their thinking. They adhere to the status quo instead of experimenting with new approaches; they reject novel ideas without scrutiny; and they rebuff innovation on principle.

Not so for the Royal Opera House. On February 17^th, it debuted “Anna Nicole,” the rags-to-riches story and cautionary tale of Smith’s rise to fame and ultimate demise.