TheLeadershipNotebook

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

“The soul never thinks without a picture.”

~Aristotle

 

I recently had the opportunity to participate in the first stage of a strategic planning workshop for a community organization where I volunteer. The session was facilitated by Jim Haudan, CEO of Root, a company that specializes in strategy planning, execution and employee engagement.

Jim is also the author of an excellent book, The Art of Engagement, an extremely useful resource to organizations and leaders looking to take their strategy process from paper to action with employees engaged along the journey.

I’ve participated in many strategic planning sessions over my career and facilitated some as well. But the unique aspect of Root’s process (I’ve participated in more than a few that Jim has facilitated) is its emphasis on the power of a picture in each phase of the process.

An example of the impact of an image in the process is in building shared meaning among the group. Words like “excellence,” “vision” or even “strategy” mean different things to different people.

Look at these two pictures:

 

 

When you say the word “bear” two very different images can come to mind. Expanding the concept further, a bottle of aspirin (Bayer) or a baby’s “bare” bottom can be conjured up. Without clarity or shared meaning, one concept of “excellence” can mean different things to different people.

Root’s “Learning Maps,” focus on pictures, and the premise of creating shared meaning among participants, has transformed strategy and culture from large multi-national corporations to small not-for profits across the globe. 

I’m looking forward to continuing the process.

What do you think? Do you have a clear picture of where your strategy is taking you?

To your success,

Mary

 

 

Collaborating to Make a Difference

 

Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress,

and working together is success.

~Henry Ford

Yesterday, The CPA Consultants’ Alliance (CPACA), an alliance I helped cofound earlier this year, published our first white paper:  CPA Firm Leadership: Communication Drives New Possibilities. This white paper is the outcome of a research study we undertook that focused on the CPA profession's current and future leadership opportunities and challenges in the accounting profession.

The white paper took an incredible amount of time and effort, but in the end, the document and all it represents, is a source of tremendous pride.

When we formed the CPACA, each of us members understood the power of collaboration. We knew that in theory, “the sum of the parts was definitely greater than the whole.”  And over the last six months, we practiced what we preached, working together each step of the way for the ultimate purpose of making a difference in the accounting profession.

It wasn’t always easy. Each of us has incredibly busy schedules and businesses that need our full attention. Each of us has our particular personality, background and experience that add perspective and opinions on how things should work. But we made time. We debated the issues. We dealt with challenges head on, with honesty and openness and a willingness to listen to and support each other.

As I embark on the next leg of my career journey and say farewell to the members of the CPACA, I know I will miss this group, their passion for CPAs, and all that I learned from them through our collaboration.

The CPACA’s mission is “to explore leadership issues facing the profession and develop and share solutions that benefit practitioners.  CPA Consultants' Alliance members support each member’s growth and collaborate to make a difference in the communities we serve.”

 

We did just that.

 

I’m proud of our work and I know that the CPACA, through all of our amazing members, will be an example of outstanding thought leadership in the accounting profession for years to come.

 

So collaborate and make a difference.

 

To your success,

 

Mary

 

Your First 90 Days....

 

“Failure to prepare is preparing to fail.”

~John Wooden

 

In last week’s post, I shared the news that I’ve accepted the position of President of Toledo St. Ursula Academy and Junior Academy. My start date is October 1st. I’m excited to jump right into my new role and hit the ground running.

But as a leadership development coach who has worked with many leaders during their transition into new roles, I have to remind myself to practice what I preach. What do I mean?

According to research and best practices on leadership effectiveness, the first days in a new position are critical because small differences in a new leader’s actions can have a huge impact on long-term results.

Whether you’re a hire from the outside, as I am, or an existing employee who has been at an organization for a while, it’s important that the new leader take the time up front to quickly diagnose a your situation, understand its challenges and opportunities, establish priorities and manage the key relationships that will help you succeed.

 

So my real start date was the minute I accepted my new position.

 

There are two resources I have utilized with my coaching clients who are entering new roles. The first, Michael Watkins’ The First 90 Days, provides an excellent roadmap for a new leader. The second, The New Leader’s 100 Day Action Plan by Brandt et. al. offers a similar blueprint that includes practical tools to help you implement your plan.

 

Here’s a very brief summary of the concepts that Watkins shares in The First 90 Days. He outlines 10 key transition challenges that will help you navigate your road ahead. They are:

 

 

1. Promote Yourself — get yourself mentally ready to step into your new role. Shift your mindset and perspective and embrace your new position.
2. Accelerate Your Learning — figure out what you need to learn and identify up front your best available sources of insight and information and learn what you need to learn in the shortest amount of time.
3. Match Strategy to Situation—not every situation is the same. This transition challenge requires you to assess just what you are facing. The book outlines four different business situations that will allow you to match the appropriate focus and response to needs of the organization.
4. Secure Early Wins—in this step, the new leader tailors early initiatives to build personal credibility, establish key relationships, and identify and harvest low-hanging fruit-the highest –potential opportunities for short term improvements in organizational performance.
5. Negotiate Success—proactively work to understand with your new boss just what success looks like. You will have greater clarity and a sense of focus for your efforts.
6. Achieve Alignment—this step requires a focus on analyzing the architecture of your organization. Assess alignment among strategy, structure, systems and skills. You will likely not be able to do this immediately but it should be included in your 90 Day plan.
7. Build Your Team—begin by assessing your team, looking for congruence with strengths and needs of the organization. Then work to build team trust and cohesion. You will also need to put in place goals, incentives and performance measures that will propel your team in the desired direction.
8. Create Coalitions—consolidate existing sources of support while developing relationships with those whose resources or connections you need to succeed.
9. Keep Your Balance-- build your support systems and keep your personal disciplines. Starting new is challenging and stressful. It’s important to remember to keep this important balance.
10. Expedite Everyone —if there are other new leaders in your organization, share these steps with them. Share your plan as well.

 

Regardless of the tools or resources you use, if you are anticipating a promotion or a move to a new assignment, planning your first three months in your role is a must. I’ve completed a first draft of my 90 Day Plan and have already accomplished some of my action steps.

 

What do you think? What has worked for you when you transition into a new position? I’d love to hear about strategies you have used in your first days and months in your new job.

 

To your success,

 

Mary

Same Journey, New Path...

 

“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you’ve imagined.”

~Henry David Thoreau

 

Dear Friends,

 

Over the last six years, I’ve had the privilege to work with many outstanding leaders and teams, helping them to reach their highest potential. My work has been about the positive aspects of change:  personal growth, learning, building resilience and increasing emotional intelligence.

 

Coaching my wonderful clients and meeting all of you have been so rewarding and a very natural expansion of my previous career as a practicing CPA and management consultant. 

I now have a fantastic opportunity to continue my career journey along a different, yet exciting path. I will be assuming the role of President of my alma mater, St. Ursula Academy and Junior Academy.  SUA is Toledo, Ohio’s oldest all-girls Catholic high school and is built on a foundation of educating the whole young woman: academically, spiritually, physically and emotionally.

I’ve been passionate about the mission and vision of St. Ursula since my high school graduation nearly 40 years ago. Each of my three daughters is an alumna. I’ve been a volunteer, booster and former board chair. So when the opportunity to lead the school as its President arose, I felt a calling to serve.

 

My financial background, leadership development coaching, and consulting expertise, along with my love of the school, was a combination I couldn’t resist. And the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of nearly 600 young women is foundational to my decision.

 Mary Conlisk ‘74

St. Ursula Academy

 

I will begin my role October 1^st and will honor all my coaching and commitments through January 2013. Although my external coaching will end, I intend to continue this blog, The Leadership Notebook.

How lucky I have been to have met each of you along this leg of my career journey. I hope our paths cross again soon but please accept my sincere gratitude for all I have learned from you along the way.

To your success,

Mary

The Truth About Leadership

 

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more,

do more and become more,  you are a leader.”

~John Quincy Adams 

 

Great leadership doesn't require a diploma or a degree. It's not reserved for some elite group of people. Leadership can be something for everyone to embrace, from administrative assistant to janitor to manager to CEO.

Leadership is about so much more than strategy, operations and marketing. It's about discovering and understanding each team member's potential (as well as your own) and finding ways to tap into that resource, something many managers neglect to do.

On leaders, wise man, Lao Tzu suggests:

"A leader is best when people barely know he exists. When his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves."

It sounds simple and it is. But no one said it was easy. For many people, leadership based on inspiring and encouraging others requires a shift in mindset and perspective. It requires a shift to a mindset and perspective that fundamentally believes in their employee’s capability, value and ability to positively contribute to the organization.

And it also requires a focus on channeling their employee's intelligence and passion to engage them in accomplishing their goals; goals that are aligned with the goals of the organization.

Whether you’re the boss or the employee, in order to inspire leadership, try these simple (but not easy) suggestions:

 

1. Establish trust. Leaders need to create it and employees need to, well, trust. If your words and actions are just lip service, employees will know and steer clear. Do what you say you will do. It is the foundation for all leadership. When trust is built, employees can move forward with confidence knowing that they are on a solid foundation.

2.  Build understanding. Employee empowerment is not an event. It’s a philosophy with specific strategies that allow staff to make decisions that directly affect their job. Employers need to be in it for the long term and employees need to consider how their decisions may affect the company.

3. Establish clear boundaries. When the leader is away, what decisions can staff make? Remember, assigning responsibility without authority can be a leadership killer. Make sure everyone knows who is leading whom. If you're an employee, make sure you get clear direction before assuming responsibility. Knowing your boundaries allows you to be proactive in your actions and decisions.

 

4.  Encourage. Second guessing the decisions of staff that have been given the authority to make those decisions undermines the entire process. Will mistakes be made? Of course. But shoot down an employee and see if anyone ever steps up with a critical idea or decision that takes the company's success to the next level.

Empowering employees is a powerful way to motivate staff. It allows them to get passionate about challenges and inspires them to step up with new ideas. It's a win-win situation. Left uninterrupted, this cycle repeats, encouraging passionate and skilled people to step up and make decisions about how to best serve customers or clients, which ultimately benefits the bottom line.

Knowing and believing you can lead regardless of your level is an incredibly powerful feeling. What do you think? How do inspire those you lead to lead as well?

To your success,

Mary

 

An Unexpected Bonus

 

“Patience is not passive. On the contrary, it is active. It is concentrated strength.”

~Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

 

I had a coaching meeting this week with “Rick,” a Partner of a very successful CPA firm. For some background, Rick is a “go getter,” operating with a sense of urgency in everything he does. This style worked well for Rick in the early years of his career. He could be relied on to get stuff done and that sense of urgency translated into great productivity.

That was then. Now as a Partner, Rick must get work accomplished with and through others. That’s difficult to do when you haven’t taken the time to build relationships with or develop others. When you rush about, not listening or connecting with those individuals you lead and rely on to deliver great work.

Rick has realized that in order for his practice to grow, to continue his success at work, he needed to make some changes.

Thus Rick came to me for coaching to build his self-awareness and get a handle on his impatience and de-motivating leadership style. Rick embraced the coaching from the beginning, learning about himself through self assessments and the questions we discussed during our coaching sessions. In addition he focused on practicing patience in his daily interactions.

Not only has he been practicing patience at work, he’s also been practicing patience at home with his wife and three young children. He had a real chance to practice with his kids on a recent family vacation. In fact, Rick just got back from an 8 day trip. All five of them traveled in a minivan to 6 different cities throughout the south. Yikes! This would be a true test….

So, this week, it was a special bonus and a surprise to read a note written to me by Rick’s wife on what a difference his new found patience has made for their family, especially on their recent vacation. “Calm,” “engaged” and “thoroughly enjoyable” were some of the words his wife used to describe the “new Rick.” The kids even commented on how fun Dad was. Rick’s response: “For that reason alone, it is definitely worth all the hard work and practice.”

Very cool.

The letter is a great reminder that while our work behaviors are important to our “success,” how we show up in our personal life can be every bit as impactful.

What about you? Are you aware of how your behaviors impact others? Do you rush through life, never stopping to connect or be fully present to others? What are the implications at work AND at home?

To your success,

Mary

The End of the Command and Control Leader?

 

“In these troubled and uncertain times, we don’t need more command and control;

we need better means to engage everyone’s intelligence

in solving challenges and crises as they arise.”

~Margaret Wheatley

 

Command and control leaders. You love to hate them. These leaders are the “my way or the highway” type where the phrase “Just Do It” takes on quite a different meaning than Nike ever intended. But the reality is that this form of leadership has been the long standing default style for many leaders in our Firms and Corporations.  

I don’t know about you, but I’ve had the “pleasure” to work with more than a couple command and control type leaders in my years as a practicing CPA.  And my experience is consistent with the research on the negative impact of this leadership style:

No Flexibility   -- “My way or else.”

No Clarity   – “I only know what not to do.”

No Responsibility   – “Just doing my job.”

No Commitment   – “I’m just looking out for myself.”

But there is great news coming from a research study of 1,700 CEOs recently completed by IBM. The study reported that these leaders clearly see that the command and control leadership style is outdated and ineffective.

The implications are clear for the CPA profession as well. It’s time for Partners and Managers to move off this outdated and non-productive leadership style and embrace the leadership style that engages, inspires and aligns their professionals to outstanding performance and results. New behaviors can be learned and when CPA leaders see the positive impact on the bottom line, they’ll be more motivated than ever to shift their approach.

A New Era of Openness and Collaboration

The study also revealed what CEOs are looking for in employees, another clue that we’re moving in a direction that’s more open and collaborative. These CEO respondents want to recruit and hire people who excel at working in open, complex, and team-based environments. Highly valued skills are collaboration (75 percent), communication (67 percent), creativity (61 percent) and flexibility (61 percent).

It’s a new day and Firm and Corporate leadership must change with it.

How about you? What is your experience with “Command and Control” leaders? How do you see your leadership style shifting in today’s complex business environment?

To your success,

Mary

The Avengers and The Critical Role of Followers

 

“It is the men behind who make the man ahead."

~Merle Crowell

My daughter Emily, soon to be a law school graduate, is an extra in The Avengers movie that premieres today. That’s her, in the back left. I can pick her out.

 

 

Her experience as a cast member in the movie was certainly a memorable one. But it involved long, grueling nights last summer (midnight to 7 am) to shoot the same scenes over and over and over again. And many of her hours were devoted to scenes that will never see the light of day.

But without Emily and scores of other followers like camera people, costume designers and technical crafts people, superheroes like The Avengers would never get to shine so bright. These followers are cooperative team players, persistent and determined, committed to the excellence of their project.

Building and developing leadership skills is the focus of books, coaching sessions and even many of these Leadership Notebook blog posts. But we must remember the wise words of the great philosopher Aristotle: “He who’s never learned to obey can’t be a good commander."

What do you think? What is the value of a good follower in your organization?

To your success,

Mary

5 Tips for Effective Delegation

 

“The great leaders are like the best conductors-

they reach beyond the notes to reach the magic in the players.”

~Blaine Lee

 

Imagine you’re playing Leadership Jeopardy with Delegation as one of the categories.

 

“I’ll take Delegation for $500, Bob.” The answers could be any one of the following:

1.  “If you want something done right, do it yourself.”
2. “My team members are all too busy to take on more work.”
3. “I’m too busy to teach them the right way.”

 

The Question: What is: “Why I don’t delegate?”

 

I’ve heard these same worn out answers from my harried coaching clients. They’d rather work 25 hours a day than delegate to their eager and capable staff.

As leaders, we have two major priorities. Our first is to think strategically, crafting a plan and approach to solve our toughest problems. A second priority is to develop our teams to help us solve those problems.

But you don’t have time to do the first unless you’re committed to the second.

 

Leveraging leadership is all about giving yourself the opportunity to do what you do best, and making sure your teams can do the same. And you can’t do either without effective delegation.

So if we know we must delegate effectively to succeed, how can we move beyond thinking like the answers detailed above.

Here are 5 tips that you can use to begin to develop your leadership leverage:

 

1. Accept the fact that effective delegation is a leadership imperative and decide to improve your delegation skills immediately.  I’ve reviewed numerous position descriptions and competency models and completed scores of 360 interviews and assessments. In every case, effective delegation is a skill requirement for leaders at all levels. Don’t resist building this necessary skill.

2. Effective delegation involves understanding the competencies of your team.  Match the skills and abilities of the individual to the tasks to be delegated. Be patient. Know that they will not complete the task exactly like you would but that is the key part of their learning and development. Understand their focus for development. What is it that they want to learn to be more fulfilled? What do they need to learn to advance? Know how the delegated task fits their developmental needs.

 

3. Invest the time up front to make sure you teach them what they need to know to get them on their way.

 

• Clearly articulate your desired outcome. 
• Clearly articulate the time expected for completion.
• Clearly articulate the deadline for project or task completion.

 

Giving blanket orders to “do what it takes” or “get it back to me sometime next week” only sets both parties up for frustration and potential failure. Time spent up front provides greater returns on your investment once the project is complete. And that’s the definition of leverage.

 

4. Don’t get caught in “upward delegation,” which occurs when your staff attempts to give the project back due to time constraints or lack of understanding. Encourage your staff to focus on solving the problem and taking responsibility to complete the work. This is their time to learn and your time to lead.

5. Thoroughly review the completed work and provide feedback, positive if it meets your needs or constructive if the results are less than you expect. This is not the time to just “let it go” and rework it yourself.

 

Effective delegation provides a win-win solution for you and your team members. As the leader, you have developed and empowered your team to be more comfortable in taking on additional responsibility. This frees up available time for you to think strategically and work on more complex challenges.

So, what holds you back from more effective delegation habits? How can you break through to realize this is a win-win for both you as the leader and your team members who must develop in order to move forward?

To your success,

 

Mary

 

 

Firm Culture: The Secret Sauce

 

Could This Be Your Firm?

“…but culture was always a vital part of ______________________’s success. It revolved around teamwork, integrity, a spirit of humility, and always doing right by our clients. The culture was the secret sauce that made this place great and allowed us to earn our client’s trust….”

The quote above is an excerpt from a NY Times Op-Ed by Greg Smith of Goldman Sachs who is resigning today after almost 12 years at the firm. I left the firm name blank above because I believe it could be written about many firms and organizations that’ve lost their way on the road to “success.”

But Smith goes on: “How did we get here? The firm changed the way it thought about leadership. Leadership used to be about ideas, setting an example and doing the right thing. Today, if you make enough money for the firm (and are not currently an ax murderer) you will be promoted into a position of influence.”

Ouch.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for profitability and success, but Smith identifies Goldman Sachs’ problem as veering way far off from a client-centered focus. Smith says: “It astounds me how little senior management gets a basic truth: If clients don’t trust you they will eventually stop doing business with you. It doesn’t matter how smart you are.”

Smith’s words are a wake-up call to professional service firms and organizations of all sizes. And to their senior leadership.

What is your firm’s leadership culture? Do you even know? What is the culture you want? What’s the gap between your current culture and desired culture? The Leadership Culture Survey ™ is an assessment instrument that I utilize to help senior leaders and their teams identify their gaps and create strategies and solutions for bridging the gap.

Assessment of your firm’s leadership culture can be your first step in keeping that “secret sauce” that makes your firm great and keep your client’s trust.

 

What do you think?

To your success,

Mary