“What happens if you walk out the door and get hit by a bus?” It is not unusual when dealing with leaders in our coaching conversations when a question similar to this surfaces. There’s usual a bit of chuckling involved and an exchange of humorous comments before we get down to where the client wants to go . . . the serious five-sixths of the iceberg below the surface of the initial discussion. There is a tendency for some leaders (not you of course) to feel infallible and indestructible. This can get in the way of building greater capacity in those who report to us.

The metaphor of ‘the bus’ comes in many forms. If a version of the bus does in fact unexpectantly run over you (note Schultz’s Law: Murphy’s an optimist), then who is able to seamlessly step into your shoes should you find yourself temporarily out of the game . . . on the sidelines as it were? Are you ready my friend for such an event? Quickly filling the leadership pipeline is one of your major responsibilities . . . your organization should not expect less! As an executive coach who works with clients around the world, I have the slight luxury of a broader perspective of organizations . . . both private, public and not-for-profit sectors. In fact, this year to date I have seen three key senior leaders be unexpectedly moved over to the sidelines in their respective organizations. One leader, a Vice President – Operations, recently reflected on just such an experience. They shared just how thankful they were for the executive coaching support that was in service of their ability to see the value of changing their leadership behavior of shifting from a high need for absolute control to that of developing a greater capacity in others to grow, develop and increase their skills and abilities to take on increased accountability and delivery of high quality results . . . not to mention dramatically enhanced levels of professional and personal satisfaction. The value of succession planning for this particular leader has taken on a whole new level of importance, not to mention for the organization. 

Letting go of the reins of control can be exceptionally challenging for any leader, yet the return on the invested time and resources for the leader, key staff, other stakeholders and the organization typically exceeds all expectations when (not if) the inevitable reality of an unplanned highly stressful event occurs and readily takes the leader out of the game.

Should the inevitable surface for you, are you or your organization able to operate at you’re the most effective levels? Are you truly able to successfully step back and confidently address the presenting issue when temporarily sidelined? I would be most interested in hearing your thoughts, your truth, when the bus comes screaming through your world.

One of the most common frustrations that I hear from my executive coaching clients often centers around the need for change and to remain a high performance organization even when to outsiders (and some insiders) there is a sense that the organization is doing very well. Jim Collins in his book Good to Great stated that the enemy of great is good and the experience of my clients reflects precisely that.

Often we focus in on the ability of the leader and the leadership team to create a sense of urgency to support and drive the change. This is easy to create when the organization is losing money and market share in a very public way. But how do you create it in a profitable and stable organization. Waiting for the crisis to become more evident is not always a good plan (ask music stores about iTunes or Blockbuster about NetFlix). The key comes down to creating a meaningful sense of urgency within the organization.

Weighing in on this issue is respected Business thought lead John Kotter in his recent book “A Sense of Urgency“. To assist his readers, Kotter discusses three distinct states: complacency, false urgency and true urgency.

Complacency is the known quantity that we all have bumped up against and have to deal with in our own way as it blocks, both actively and passively, action designed to move the organization and the culture forward.

False Urgency is often the unrecognized issue. Because the people involved often are very active it is frequently mistaken for true urgency. These characteristics lead to high levels of activity with little productivity attached to it . . . where people tend to be reactive and defensive rather than proactive and curious, and lack clear direction or planning in their actions. This leaves them feeling overworked and frustrated which is not conducive to achievement and positive change that is being sought.

True Urgency is that rare state where people are fully engaged with a deep personal connection to the issue. It is easy to engage the mind with a well presented and factual business case. To create the deep personal connection you need to engage the heart of the person. This is best accomplished through the use of a story or example which creates a personal attachment to goals. It also creates a strong personal motivation that ties the individual to achievement of goals. It is stories that enroll the person in the desired goals and compels them to action.

Kotter provides a number of tools that can be used to help make this transition and to identify times when complacency and false urgency exist. The bottom line, you as a leader need to act with true urgency each and every day!

Bringing all this back to our executive coaching clients,means that they need to be self aware and curious about their own role. It can be easy to personally feel that once a particular task is done that the foot can be lifted from the gas pedal for a bit and a deep breath is in order. This is often observed as rationale for feeling that the worst is over and that one’s guard can be let down. Are you guilty of the same thing in your position or in managing your career? What messages are you sending to the organization that may be undermined by your behavior? How are you shortchanging yourself and your organization if you don’t act with a sense of true urgency each and every day?

This is where the executive coaching relationship can have its maximum impact and value for each of our clients. The ability of our executive coaching to support you to hold you, the client, accountable for creating true urgency. The ability and to enhance your self-awareness as leader in ways that avoid self-subvertion, but rather to be  in  true service of moving your and your organization’s agenda powefully forward.

For many of our executive clients the biggest learning has come from identifying the blocks that they create for themselves and as a result creating strategies for overcoming them . . . establishing true urgency in their lives. Once these blocks are removed you,  the client,can quickly begin reaping the competitive advantage, both personally and corporately. This comes from living and acting with a sense of true urgency!

I have just one question to leave with you, “What would you be able to create in your personal and professional life by coming from a place of true urgency in all you do each and every day?

We received a call the other day from Tony, a CEO of a major oil and gas company, who shared with us that he was quite concerned about one of his key executives. He said that Frank  had been recently promoted to replace a key member of the ELT (executive leadership team) who had retired about nine months ago. He bluntly stated, “Frank doesn’t appear to be working out the way I had hoped and is quite frankly derailing! Can we explore the situation and help me better understand why some leaders derail and and some don’t? What can I do about it?”

These are not uncommon questions that are raised by our corporate clients from time to time. In our executive coaching conversation with Tony, it was noted that The Centre for Creative Leadership found that approximately 50% of high potential managers and executives derail. Contributing to this is the fact that the initial technical and problem solving skills that had fomerly served a number of these derailed leaders well now can’t be relied on to address the increased complexity of operating at a more strategic leve, nor the resulting demands placed on their leadership that are typically changing from day to day, never mind month to month, or year to year.

Further, research has indicated that those leaders who are in fact successful in their leadership roles exhibit some of the following characteristics:

1. They tend to be highly flexible and responsive to change
2. They have a powerful ability to navigate through ambiguity and complexity
3. They pick things up very quickly and in a variety of circumstances
4. They are able to coach, facilitate, coordinate and develop their teams in a variety of circumstances with many different types of people
5.  They are highly grounded, self-manage themselves and work with others well under highly stressful circumstances
6. One of their mottos is ‘Feedback is the breakfast of Champions’ and thus constantly seek it out from those all around them
7.  They are quite aware that their strengths when overused in fact become their weaknesses, and those identified become their primary focus of professional/personal development
8. They readily acknowledge and champion their people, no matter how small the contribution or how challenging the initiative(s)
9. They are able to authentically share their thoughts, feelings and wants in equal amounts with their staff, colleagues, boss(s) and customers/clients, encouraging reciprocation, and do so with a strong sense of empathy and compassion toward others

Leaders having the potential for derailment include: the overly ambitious, the perfectionist, those who go it alone, over-managing, over-loyal to the organization, those who are over-controlling and 0ver-results oriented, single minded, too focused on technical detail, unduly personable and relying solely on relationships to get things done, having excessive fire in the belly, having too many things on the go, overly dependent on others, won’t be pushed off the mark, caught up with escalating-commitment, the constant need to be right, and loves to scrap with others beyond having constructive differences. 

To avoid derailment or to rerail, the leader needs to learn thoughtfully and constructively how to develop the team; strengthen strategic thinking and decision making; clarify specific expectations around deliverables and follow up; be self-aware and self manage under stress while at the same time being empathetic towards others; creating the right balance between collaboration, independent action and delegation; manage strategic alliances, assure functional strategic alignment and effectively manage differences vertically and horizontally. 

What’s been your experience? What have you learned as result and what did you do with it? What have you done with these insights? We would love to hear your thoughts and feelings on the subject. Take care.

Every now and then a gift is given to the world, and that is just what Paul Hawken gave us in an unforgettable commencement address to the Class of 2009, at the University of Portland. It was recently passed on to me and I want to gift it forward so you too can enjoy his powerful message. Enjoy.

“When I was invited to give this speech, I was asked if I could give a simple short talk that was “direct, naked, taut, honest, passionate, lean, shivering, startling, and graceful.” No pressure there.

Let’s begin with the startling part. Class of 2009: you are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating. Kind of a mind-boggling situation . . . but not one peer-reviewed paper published in the last thirty years can refute that statement. Basically, civilization needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades.

This planet came with a set of instructions, but we seem to have misplaced them. Important rules like don’t poison the water, soil or air, don’t let the earth get overcrowded, and don’t touch the thermostat have been broken. Buckminster Fuller said that spaceship earth was so ingeniously designed that no one has a clue that we are on one, flying through the universe at a million miles per hour, with no need for seat-belts, lots of room in coach, and really good food – but all that is changing

There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma you will receive, and in case you didn’t bring lemon juice to decode it, I can tell you what it says: You are Brilliant and the Earth is Hiring. The earth couldn’t afford to send recruiters or limos to your school. It sent you rain, sunsets, ripe cherries, night blooming jasmine, and that unbelievably cute person you are dating. Take the hint. And here’s the deal: Forget that this task of planet-saving is not possible in the time required. Don’t be put off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done.”.  For the rest of the address go to http://youarebrilliant.org/. “ It is well worth the few additional minutes to read the balance of this wonderful commencement address. Then I invite you to gift it forward!

Paul Hawken is a noted visionary and entrepreneur whose many books can be found on Amazon.com. We would enjoy hearing what your gold nuggets are from reading his comments and observations. Who are you becoming? What are you willing to change? What’s next?

“I’m responsible for Strategy.” said Mike Payne, General Manager – Strategy & Portfolio with Shell Gas & Power, while on a Continental flight from Houston, Texas to Seattle, Washington. We just finished introducing ourselves and had an interesting discussion about organizational strategy, employee loyalty and corporate cultures and how they positively or negatively affect organization performance, particularly during these white water times. The whole concept of corporate strategy, its development and implementation have always fascinated me. Having led and facilitated strategic change both in organizations in executive roles and as an executive coach/consultant, I’ve always believed that strategy development, which of course is critical, is really where “the rubber hits the sky.” Strategy implementation on the other hand is where “the rubber hits the road”! The latter is where real management change takes place. I’ll come back to this shortly.

Strategy development is critical, but my experience and observation is that most senior leaders would simply rather chew through their left arm than spend the usual inordinate amounts of time working through a long laborious strategic management process facilitated by high priced consulting firms over many months (even years). The end result is a strategic document so massive that one could hit a moose between the eyes with it and drop him right on the spot. Typically, along with the other ‘pressing demands’ that await them back at the ranch, the participants never truly want to revisit these documents no matter how well initially intentioned.

So what’s the alternative? Most will agree that organizations have to have a clear vision and supportive strategy! In these turbulent times being faced with imperfect organization systems, people and the world around us, there are truly no right answers. But there is a way to accelerate the development of powerful strategy with the foregoing imperfections. By utilizing full involvement of the whole organization from top to bottom you will be able to maximize understanding, ownership, commitment of the people that have to make it happen (not the executive) and quickly increase the probability of the organization’s strategic advantage and success.

This means moving forward in a way that fully involves the organization’s people while driving up the collective dissatisfaction of all involved with the organization’s current state of affairs and producing substantive clarity around what improvement would look like. Collectively determine the first steps toward moving quickly and powerfully forward on that vision and clarify the capabilities that need to be developed to accelerate the changes needing to take place rapidly thus resulting in the organization overpowering the ever present inertia that resists any planned change.

Now that your organization has a quick and well developed strategy it’s ready to move forward! Whoa Nellie, not so fast. Remember that inertia piece previously referred to. Well it has been temporarily disabled and if you don’t exploit it quickly it will solidly re-establish its dysfunctional presence. You must start to quickly redesign your organization to assure you successfully achieve your organization’s new dream: the strategic plan. The focus now is on redesigning and changing your organization in ways that will enable it to quickly realize the new strategy. This requires you to revisit your organization’s current structure, systems, staffing, competencies, leadership style and the way we do things around here (often referred to as your organization’s culture, those principles that guide how people are expected to work with each other and the organization’s customers/clients).

These key areas must be revisited and fundamentally changed creating full alignment with and producing the strategic results planned for. Otherwise, as Edward Deming put it, every system is perfectly designed for the results it produces! So if you want different results, i.e. achieving the organization’s new strategy, then by definition you must change each of the foregoing components of your organization or it will simply continue to create the results produced to date and perhaps further deterioration of same. Oh, the dangers of being an executive in this day and age! No wonder these positions are affectionately known as ulcer jobs!

Here’s a small insight, the most important aspect of the foregoing is not the strategic planning, strategic management and change in management processes, but rather having the ‘leadership cajones’, courage and confidence to make it all happen! This requires a very unique leader and these are truly a very rare breed, thus being paid the big bucks as they say. However, if the desire is squarely there, then surrounding oneself with the right team who first prepare to invest in themselves working from the inside out, rather than the outside in (i.e. strategic planning, management and change) then you have a fighting chance of success.

This is really all about the CEO and his/her team being different individually and as an executive leadership team as opposed to simply doing things differently. Otherwise, as was previously inferred, the probably of bringing about needed change will be minimal. If anything it will probably become worse. Being different at both the individual and leadership team levels necessitates having the courage to work with highly seasoned executive coaches, being ready to engage in quick and powerful diagnostics, and preparing to first make the personal changes necessary to assure that the new strategy truly sticks to the wall and doesn’t just slide away. Otherwise the whole strategic management process will be an enormous waste of time, money and organizational energy. And if this is the case, it will clearly contribute to executive candidacies for transfer outside the organization!

What feelings surface for you on this subject? What to you think about it? What is it that you want to do with the information? I’m most interested in hearing from you: the good, the bad and the ugly!