Friday, August 30, 2013

Performance Results in Focus


Of course, the number of hours you put in do matter.  But at the end of the day, your efforts must serve their purpose and produce expected outcomes.

There are two American sayings that are apropos here:  Sometimes you have to take the bull by the horns, and you have to pull yourself up by the bootstraps.  It's taking control, doing the hard work, and making something happen.

Integrity comes from making the right promises and delivering right.  

If you've embarked on something wholly unconventional or undreamed-of, then there may be so much effort put in and so many encounters with failure, that the correlation between success and effort may be zero.

Exactly!

This is simply common sense, but it makes for a perfect metaphor.

This refers to football, but we can safely generalize that all professional sports are a results-based business.

When words have the power to engage and inspire, as well as ridicule and demoralize, then definitely words matter.

Steve Jobs wasn't just a visionary and innovator, but also a taskmaster on detail, preparation and quality.

Neither leaders nor their staff ought never confuse effort and results.

When done properly, executive coaches do help CEOs learn, develop and improve themselves signficantly.

Jim Collins emphasized that great leaders put people first, before results.  Results follow from great people.  I know it may be tacit, but let's put it on the table:  Before people, there must be great leaders.   

Navigating the waters from Big Data and insight, to actionable plans and business results is much easier said than done.  

The paradigm of the inveterate entrepreneur, Branson knows full-well what matters the most.

Poor management may have terrific people to rely on, but in the end it sows the seeds of its own undoing.

Socializing or networking is in the fabric of the human condition, and the focus may be the business and the leaders themselves.

Advice I heard years ago:  Act like you belong, play like a champion.  

Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!  Also, if you'd like a PDF of this article, please e-mail me at Ron.Villejo@ronvillejoconsulting.com.

Ron Villejo, PhD

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Thursday, August 29, 2013

Relationships is the Essence of Leadership




































Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!  Also, if you'd like a PDF of this article, please e-mail me at Ron.Villejo@ronvillejoconsulting.com.

Ron Villejo, PhD

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Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Hiring Secrets of Famous Coaches


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Reference:  10 Hiring Secrets of Famous Coaches

Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!  Also, if you'd like a PDF of this article, please e-mail me at Ron.Villejo@ronvillejoconsulting.com.

Ron Villejo, PhD

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Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Best Advice Jeff Weiner Ever Received



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Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!  Also, if you'd like a PDF of this article, please e-mail me at Ron.Villejo@ronvillejoconsulting.com.

Ron Villejo, PhD

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Thursday, August 22, 2013

Executive Coaching Under the Spotlight


In certain respects, corporate leaders lag their counterparts in sports organizations.  The latter know full well that coaching is paramount to athletics.  Coaching is built into the very blueprint of the game, so there is no questioning it and there is no worrying about it.  While this is true of team sports, even athletes in individual sports like golf and tennis engage one or more coaches.  

The good news is, these top leaders may be coming around to, and seeing the value of, executive coaching.

Former Chicago Bulls head coach, Phil Jackson, with Scottie Pippen (33) and Michael Jordan (23)

I am a management consultant, executive coach, and clinical psychologist as well.  So you may argue that my views on this matter are slanted in favor of the survey findings that Harvard Business Review and Forbes summarize:  Research:  What CEOs Really Want from Coaching and CEOs Just Want To Get Coached, respectively.

But let's look into these findings further, and dig for patterns that speak to CEOs and their Board vis-a-vis executive coaching.

Why is coaching important?
Blind spots are less obvious when things are going well. It is very easy for executives to become almost strictly inward looking, especially when they have been very successful. But these blind spots can become devastating when performance moves in the other direction. A good, neutral third party assessment is a clear reality check for executives. 
Additionally, every single person inside the company has an agenda of some sort. This makes the coaching environment a rare and safe place to think through various topics against the framework of what is in the CEO's best interest. The coach is only concerned with the CEO's wild success as the leader of the company.
One basic lesson in driving school is to check the blind spot.  Besides checking the side view and rear view mirrors, drivers must turn their head to the right or to the left, before changing lanes.  More recent automobile technology has a specialized mirror, built into the side view mirror, which covers that blind spot.  So drivers don't have to turn their head.  In either case, they avoid one potential driving hazard with an easy enough procedure.

What this means is this:  CEOs who have an ability, willingness and commitment to check blind spots may do just fine on their own.  But if there is any reason to wonder about how able, willing or committed they are, then it makes sense to add mechanisms or procedures to cast light on these blind spots.

This is when technology can come into play, for example, something as simple as periodic text messages to the CEO:  "Think twice," "Think again," "Are you sure?" or "What does your COO think?"  This is also when people in the organization, such as the Board and the executive team, and-or people outside the organization, such as advisers, coaches and mentors, come into play.

A more complex, larger, globalized business may in fact have hordes of blind spots.  So it is an imperative for top leaders have what they need - within themselves and surrounding them - to run their business effectively.

What should coaching focus on?

 It's clear from the following bar graph that the largest CEO segment views Conflict management as a development need and that, conversely, the smallest segment identifies Motivation as relatively strong.

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I thought there were additional findings from this graph alone, so I re-sorted it to surface crucial patterns and presented it as rank order:

Table 1. Ranked by areas that CEOs think they need to develop
Table 2. Ranked by areas that CEOs are working on
Table 3. Ranked by areas that the Board thinks their CEOs need to develop
Table 4. Ranked by areas in which CEOs and the Board differed

If I've understood the full survey report correctly - 2013 Executive Coaching Survey (PDF) - 67 out of 203 respondents were CEOs (33.2%), and 69 out of 203 respondents were Directors (Board) (34%).  These CEOs and Directors did not necessarily work for the same company.  Moreover, just 23 of the 67 CEOs (34.3%) were actually in coaching, who were thus in a position of saying what they were working on.  So we don't have specific findings on which areas only those CEOs in coaching thought they needed to develop.     

With these statistical caveats in mind, let's dive into what these Excel tables may be revealing:
  • By and large, CEOs are working on competency areas that they believe they ought to work on - i.e., Conflict management and Sharing leadership/delegation (Table 1).  
  • However, CEOs thought Listening was third priority to develop, but this area wasn't necessarily among the top they were working on (Table 1).
  • Mentoring/developing internal talent, in contrast, was among the top three CEOs were working on, although they saw this area only as a moderate priority for development (Table 2).  
  • On the other hand, the Board thought that Mentoring/developing internal talent was topmost priority for their CEOs to work on (Table 3).     
  • Like CEOs, the Board thought that Listening was a third priority for development, but again this area wasn't among the top they were working on (Table 3).
  • CEOs and the Board differed the most, in terms of what they thought, on Mentoring/developing internal talent, Communication, and Interpersonal (Table 4).
  • They agreed perfectly on 4 of the 12 areas, in terms of what they thought needed development (Table 4).  
  • They agreed moderately on another 5 of the 12 areas, differing mostly by just 1 or 2 rank positions (Table 4).   
Again, the good news is that CEOs recognize that they have development needs and want to get coaching to work on these.  Also, the Board seem to be quite supportive of their CEOs developing themselves via coaching.

Apparently, however, CEOs and the Board need to better align what they think CEOs should in fact be working on.  At best, this may simply require better communication between them, so they can reconcile their apparent disagreement.  At worst, this may mean there are notable ruptures in their relationships, which is a more serious matter to address, before or along with coaching.

To wit, the Harvard Business Review summary inquires about this:
So there's tension between boards and executive teams when it comes to coaching. How does it manifest itself? 
Again, when things are going well, there can be a tendency on the part of some CEOs to be less open to feedback and a corresponding "If it ain't broke..." attitude from the board. If things are going well, boards often feel as if they don't need to have this difficult conversation with the CEO. Both of these attitudes/approaches are a problem and certainly do happen.
Besides CEO and Board agreement, there also ought to be better alignment between what CEOs think they ought to work on and what they're actually working on.  With time, resources and investment often at a premium for top leaders, they and their Board can ill afford misalignments.  In other words, they mustn't work on anything, if it isn't a top priority.    

What is the impact of coaching?

 This survey did not really address the impact of coaching on leadership behavior or performance.  However, from the PDF report - 2013 Executive Coaching Survey - we can pinpoint to survey items that suggests impact:
  • When it comes to making changes in leadership style in response to the feedback and coaching that you receive, 42.9% of CEOs were very receptive and the remainder of the CEOs were receptive (57.1%).  Therefore 100% of them were open to making changes, although we do not know whether they actually did.  
  • 78.3% of CEOs received informal coaching and leadership advice from the Board:  38.9% and 55.6% of these particular CEOs found this to be very useful and useful, respectively.  
In conclusion

On the whole, these are encouraging findings about CEOs, their desire for executive coaching, and the support they get from the Board.  There is still quite a lag, though, in the degree to which CEOs actually utilize coaching, relative to their sports counterparts.  But they seem to be coming around.  For those who are in coaching, we need information on how it's actually working out vis-a-vis whatever objectives the CEOs establish at the outset.

Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!  Also, if you'd like a PDF of this article, please e-mail me at Ron.Villejo@ronvillejoconsulting.com.

Ron Villejo, PhD

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Monday, August 19, 2013

Business Models at Issue for Company Chiefs



Regeneron is eyeing a market - about a million people with diabetic macular edema - with their eye drug. The pharmaceutical industry must work its business models, as part of creating treatments for all sorts of diseases. So CEO Leonard Schleifer can talk, simply as a matter of fact, about this being a huge market and therefore a key opportunity for one of their products - Eylea.

In the meantime, neither nor Matthew Herper, with Forbes, even hint at the irony of their conversation.  It's this:  Pharmaceuticals depend on the propagation of disease and ailments to drive their business models.  So even as they provide vital remedies, they tacitly, or maybe not so tacitly, that assorted ailments actually recur. Consider, as a related example, the market for print cartridges:  That's repeat business for the life of the printer.



DJs (disk jockies) are very much a part of the economics of night clubs. The good ones are going more mainstream and can command higher fees. Neil Moffitt, CEO of Hakkasan Group, applauds this, that is, as long as the DJs add value to the club and the company.  Put more bluntly, imagine Moffitt saying this to them:  Want me to pay you more?  Make more money for me!

I was in a related situation:  I was offered a managerial promotion, but the position was a problematic one.  So before deciding on the offer, I proposed a plan for resolving these issues.  Moreover, the compensation package was lower than I expected.  As part of this proposal, I also made a business case for a bigger package.  In particular, the company was weighing a major sales initiative that would've cost $1 million.  With a modified job description, I could've re-analyzed and led the initiative and brought down its costs to about $100,000.  The difference would've more than covered my (proposed higher) annual salary!  




Colette LaForce, Chief Marketing Officer, at AMD says, "Marketing is the new HR." It's a catchy, sensible point: A company has to make sure that marketing works with its own people first and that they buy into what the company offers.  

I'm not familiar with AMD products, but here is my query:  LaForce seems to know her stuff rather well, and comes across as articulate and confident.  But what does she think about her company products?  I mean, really think.  How do her technical colleagues view their offerings?  More vitally, how have customers experienced the devices they've bought?

The reason I ask is that:  There were only six comments, as of now, on this video interview on YouTube.  But there is a decidedly sour note from two viewers:
my amd laptop is a piece of garbage. They dont need any marketing, they just need to make better products.
we just want value for our money !!!!
When the new CMO at RIM, makers of BlackBerry, was also interviewed by Forbes, he struck me as steely confident, articulate and knowledgeable, too.  But I commented among colleagues that the issues behind RIM's horrendous decline in the last three years were not about marketing, rather they were about product quality and timely delivery.  A few months later, RIM sales are still lagging, and company executives have yet again wondered what they ought to do and whether to sell the company!

So I hope that LaForce applied business acumen to evaluate the viability of the very things that she and her function are tasked to market.    

Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!  Also, if you'd like a PDF of this article, please e-mail me at Ron.Villejo@ronvillejoconsulting.com.

Ron Villejo, PhD

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Friday, August 16, 2013

People Insights from Google Analytics


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Big Data and analytics seem the rave in business and management circles, and Google is at the forefront of it all.  Well before their standout company was launched, Larry Page and Sergey Brin conceived of search algorithms that were clearly much better than available ones in the 1990s.  These computer codes quickly scour the web, and analyze a myriad of factors relevant to your search:  From word frequency and font size, to site citations and back links.  

So in reading about Laszlo Bock, Senior Vice President of People Operations at Google - In Head-Hunting, Big Data May Not Be Such a Big Deal - I was surprised to hear that their analytic eyes on people issues (HR) was a fairly recent development.  No matter.  They may be late to the party, but they're there now.  Other companies have all sorts of difficulty with people issues that they need guidance and support just getting to the party.

Below are my thoughts on key points from Bock [emphasis added, where italicized].  For your reference, he also gave a video interview for Wall Street Journal - How Google Decides on Hires.

The Importance of Specificity and Insight 
Big Data - when applied to leadership - has tremendous potential to uncover... universal things we should all be doing. But there are also things that are specifically true only about your organization, and the people you have and the unique situation you’re in at that point in time. I think this will be a constraint to how big the data can get, because it will always require an element of human insight. 
In terms of leadership, success is very dependent on the context. What works at Google or G.E. or Goldman Sachs is not going to be the right answer for everyone. I don’t think you’ll ever replace human judgment and human inspiration and creativity because, at the end of the day, you need to be asking questions like, O.K., the system says this. Is this really what we want to do? Is that the right thing?
Science is about patterns and aggregate.  It looks for enduring trends in phenomena, and report findings that speak to characteristics of a population.  Analytics, on the other hand, is about specificity and idiosyncrasy.  For example, Google can target ads based on my profile on Google+ and my activity across Google platforms.  For the longest time, in contrast, marketing focused on demographics (e.g., age group).

So Bock's point about what works at Google is a crucial one.  By all means, turn to Google for its repertoire of lessons learned and best practices.  But think these through carefully, decide what will and will not work for your company, and modify or adapt as necessary.  Thinking, deciding and adapting are all part of human insight.

Laszlo Bock
The Quandary of Academic Ability
After two or three years, your ability to perform at Google is completely unrelated to how you performed when you were in school, because the skills you required in college are very different. You’re also fundamentally a different person. You learn and grow, you think about things differently. 
Another reason is that I think academic environments are artificial environments. People who succeed there are sort of finely trained, they’re conditioned to succeed in that environment. One of my own frustrations when I was in college and grad school is that you knew the professor was looking for a specific answer. You could figure that out, but it’s much more interesting to solve problems where there isn’t an obvious answer. You want people who like figuring out stuff where there is no obvious answer.
Measures and views of people are founded on the premise that we are static, discrete and acontextual.  How far from reality that is, when we consider how much we change, grow and develop over time.  Academia may often be too removed from the contexts in which students will work.  It's about rigor and standards, which are certainly vital, but it may not necessarily help students learn what I call meta-skills, that is, the skills of acquiring skills, and the skills to adapt what they know and what they can do in unfamiliar, more complex situations.

The Challenge of Leadership
Leadership is a perennially difficult, immeasurable problem, so suddenly people are saying, “Maybe I can measure some piece of it.” 
Part of the challenge with leadership is that it’s very driven by gut instinct in most cases - even worse, everyone thinks they’re really good at it. The reality is that very few people are.
These border on over-statement, even provocation - for example, leadership is not an immeasurable problem - but the import of Bock's points is well-taken.  Analytics offer greater specificity and accuracy to what leaders think, decide and do vis-a-vis what they aim for or what they envision.  Although he doesn't tie gut instinct to human insight, I do.  The idea is not to subvert intuition with analytics, but (a) to widen the means by which we grasp and get things done; (b) to optimize the activities of both the left brain and right brain; and (c) sharpen our gut antennae and know better when or where to use it.   

The Accountability of Managers
Twice a year, anybody who has a manager is surveyed on the manager’s qualities. We call it an upward feedback survey. We collect data for everyone in the company who’s a manager on how well they’re doing on anywhere between 12 and 18 different factors. We then share that with the manager, and we track improvement across the whole company. Over the last three years, we’ve significantly improved the quality of people management at Google, measured by how happy people are with their managers.
We’ve actually made it harder to be a bad manager. If you go back to somebody and say, “Look, you’re an eighth-percentile people manager at Google. This is what people say.” They might say, “Well, you know, I’m actually better than that.” And then I’ll say, “That’s how you feel. But these are the facts that people are reporting about how they experience you.” 
You don’t actually have to do that much more. Because for most people, just knowing that information causes them to change their conduct. One of the applications of Big Data is giving people the facts, and getting them to understand that their own decision-making is not perfect. And that in itself causes them to change their behavior.
This is good, very good.  I've coached leaders on their development, and using a 360° tool is quite illuminating for them.  They get feedback about their competencies, based on what they do or don't do, and it comes from upward (boss), sideways (colleagues) and downward (staff).  I imagine Google has other measures of managerial performance, that is, in addition to this upward feedback survey.  But what they do, which I don't see enough of with client companies, is that accountability:  They confront issues, expect change, and track progress.

The Importance of Questioning
We’ve done some interesting things to figure out how many job candidates we should be interviewing for each position, who are better interviewers than others and what kind of attributes tend to predict success at Google. On the leadership side, we’re looking at what makes people successful leaders and how can we cultivate that. 
We’re also observing people working together in different groups and have found that the average team size of any group at Google is about six people. So we’re trying to figure out which teams perform well and which don’t. Is it because of the type of people? Is it because of the number of people? Is it because of how they work together? Is there something in the dynamic? We don’t know what we’re going to discover.
This is definitely a Big-Data look at performance, from leaders to staff.  Professional basketball teams have drawn on analytics to let the coaches know which five-man combinations on the floor play best against particular situations with opposing teams and even during which time frame in the game.  

The Effectiveness of Behavioral Interviewing
On the hiring side, we found that brainteasers are a complete waste of time. How many golf balls can you fit into an airplane? How many gas stations in Manhattan? A complete waste of time. They don’t predict anything. They serve primarily to make the interviewer feel smart.
Instead, what works well are structured behavioral interviews, where you have a consistent rubric for how you assess people, rather than having each interviewer just make stuff up.
This ought to be old hat for HR professionals:  One of the best ways to predict future success in a role is examining past performance in a similar capacity.  Maybe Google was once too cute or clever with its interviewing process, and perhaps learned through its own analytic prowess that cute or clever doesn't cut the mustard.

Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!  Also, if you'd like a PDF of this article, please e-mail me at Ron.Villejo@ronvillejoconsulting.com.

Ron Villejo, PhD

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Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Crucial Crossroads for Top Leaders and Companies


Declining confidence in Apple

It wasn't too long ago that Apple was #1 in market cap in the world. Several months after Steve Jobs' death, his company was flying higher than ever. But its stock has been declining steadily, and its competitive grip is loosening.


Apple's first logo features Sir Isaac Newton sitting under the apple tree, where he supposedly discovered gravity, when an apple fell on his head

Reinventing IBM for the future

This video is just a 8-minute trailer to entire IBM Think Forum in Japan (2012), and it's chock full of key insights. For example, Chairman Sam Palmisano says, "The first job of a leader is enable the organization succeed without him or her." This is one hallmark of a great leader, as Jim Collins found in his research, that is, one who engenders long-term, sustainable success for a company, long after he or she has left. This is just one gem in this trailer. Please feel free to watch the whole playlist, as if you were attending the Forum itself.



Marketing RIM to a turnaround

This is a question mark.  Frank Boulben, new CMO at RIM, is plugged-in (i.e., knows his stuff), steely in his demeanor, and clearly confident about turning around a failing brand. All well and good, but marketing wasn't the core issue with BlackBerry. It was delivery (delays) and operations (blackouts), plus leadership and innovation issues. I used a BB before, and I'm using an iPhone now. Honestly I loved the feel and functionality of my BB, but the foregoing problems steered me away.



Ascending at Warner Bros.

Kevin Tsujihara is tapped to be the next CEO of Warner Bros. He is viewed as having a humble, unifying leadership style, which will be of critical need, as he and two colleagues vied fiercely for the top post.


Kevin Tsujihara

Pushing Sony

This is a very understandable business effort, from an American standpoint, but I imagine billionaire investor Dan Loeb understands what he's up against in Sony and its Japanese culture and political environment. Does he know something the rest of us don't? Is he maneuvering something other than, or in addition to, reforms at Sony?

Reference:  Despite Obstacles, Dan Loeb Keeps Pushing Sony.

Dan Loeb

Partnering with Goldman Sachs

Commercial effectiveness. Entrepreneurial skills. Culture and values. You must shine in these areas, more so than others and most in particular in commercial effectiveness. The upcoming announcement of new partners will give us, on-lookers, a glimpse of how Goldman Sachs views its future. Which, I imagine, will be glimpse into our future as well.



Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!  Also, if you'd like a PDF of this article, please e-mail me at Ron.Villejo@ronvillejoconsulting.com.

Ron Villejo, PhD

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Monday, August 12, 2013

IBM Forum on the Future of Leadership


These short videos on top leaders are just a handful of terrific interviews in the IBM Think playlist on YouTube:
IBM has brought together innovative leaders from across the globe to deepen our collective understanding of the future of leadership on a smarter planet. 

 President leads without an army

Laura Chinchilla, President of Costa Rica, said her country made a constitutional decision not to have an army. Result? The relatively poor country doesn't look for wars to fight, and finds peace, instead.  It focuses its funds and resources on social and human development, instead of a defense budget.

The fact that Costa Rica can do this may or may not mean that another country can do it as well.  Each country has to decide what will in fact work best.  But its president must think carefully about this, and perhaps think unconventionally, in order to do what is best.



To Pres. Chinchilla:  Leadership = Hard work + Strong convictions + Service to people.



CEO adapts to environment

How well do you do this, and what have you found to be challenging in adapting to your environment?  Chanda Kochhar, CEO of ICICI Bank, offers her views and values on this.  Great leadership, to her, is about grasping what's going on in our environment, then working with your team, bringing them along, and ensuring they're on the same page as you.



Is it better for a company to have a gender-neutral culture, where women, for example, progress (or not progress) based on their merit, or rather a culture that places particular attention to women leadership issues and needs?  

Kochhar is fortune to have worked in organizational cultures based on meritocracy, where there was no special treatment of women and women were judged on performance and potential.  But perhaps in organizations with a long, entrenched history of gender bias, there must be a particular focus on women and concerted help to bring them along.   



CEO rethinks talent

If you cannot get the talent to work for you, bring your work to the talent.  Chris Meledandri, CEO of Illumination Entertainment, explains that the capable people you need may be in Spain and France and across the US.  So media and technology help him mobilize his team remotely, and he manages them to get things done.



Vice Chairman sees what customers see

Rajan Bharti Mittal, Vice Chairman of Bharti Enterprises, distinguishes the linear innovations of the past with the increasingly more disruptive innovations of today.  Failure to do this and to reinvent may mean a company doesn't have a tomorrow.  Practically speaking, people have a wider range of communication tools and platforms at their disposal:  It isn't just about exchanging business cards or phone numbers, but also leveraging social media like Facebook.



Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!  Also, if you'd like a PDF of this article, please e-mail me at Ron.Villejo@ronvillejoconsulting.com.

Ron Villejo, PhD

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