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Jim Clemmer's Leader Letter
Practical Leadership: Inspiring Action, Achieving Results
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"Reprinted with permission from The Leader Letter, Jim Clemmer's free e-newsletter. For over twenty-five years Jim Clemmer's practical leadership approaches have been inspiring action and achieving results. His 2,000+ presentations and workshops/retreats, five bestselling books, columns, and newsletters are helping hundreds of thousands of managers worldwide because they are inspiring, instructive, and refreshingly fun. And best of all, they work! His web site is www.clemmer.net." |
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My
new Moose on the Table Book is Now Available to Leader Letter Readers!
“Of all the wonders of nature,
a tree in summer is perhaps the most
remarkable; with the possible exception
of a moose singing ''Embraceable You''
in spats.”
- Woody Allen
The Leader Letter is a very
important tool for me to open the discussion
of my leadership principles to a very
large audience – over 20,000 subscribers
so far. It's also an opportunity for
me to get feedback and connect with
readers from around the world.
As a Leader Letter reader, it's important
for me to let you know how much I appreciate
your input and support over the years.
With Moose on the Table available
exclusively through my web site, I'm
in a rare position to offer my regular
supporters a special discount well before
my book finds it's way to retail shelves.
You'll find plenty of special discounts
and offers related to the Moose book
as well as my other books at http://www.mooseonthetable.com/offer.aspx.
So drop by and see all the ways I can
say thanks!
How
to Tell If You Have a Moose Problem
Can
Change Be Managed or Is That an Oxymoron?
A UK reader writes:
“I was interested by your article
on change management being an oxymoron
(see “Change
Management is an Oxymoron”).
Fundamentally I agree with much of
your article. Unless we are personally
ready, willing and able to accept
change then no amount of theory or
application of models will be successful.
However, I disagree with ‘change
can't be managed.’ I think that
is a generalisation that whilst provocative
has not been fully thought through.
You make the point that individuals
need to ‘learn, grow and develop
at the speed of change (or greater)’
in order to prevent later barriers
- and I largely agree with you. My
argument is that with a diverse employment
base, the development of employees
is a managerial process - so by extension
just as you argue that dealing with
change comes from timely development,
the management of that development
must be managing change.
Ideally all employees (at all levels)
would self manage their own development.
I believe it is part of the manager’s
role to facilitate that. However,
if employees are to meet the challenges
faced by change then it is incumbent
on the manager to create the conditions
for them so that they can develop
appropriately to be ready for the
change. The alternative would be for
the manager not to help this process
which is unthinkable.
I am curious as to where the figure
of 10% came from as a minimum in terms
of devoting time to personal development/growth?
Is this based on any research or simply
a figure plucked out of thin air to
help emphasize a point?
Finally, you talk about long term
culture issues that need to be changed.
I agree that these usually cannot
be changed overnight. Even though
it is a long term process, culture
change needs to be managed otherwise
there is no guarantee that the resulting
product will be that wanted by the
business leader. The alternative is
to focus on the recruitment/selection
stage as Disney for example so that
the right mindset is drafted in from
the start - but this is not applicable
in the case of changing existing culture
with existing staff.”
Steve
Hi Steve,
I welcome the discussion and points
you've raised.
We're basically in agreement. What seems
to be causing the perceived difference
in views is my distinction between management
and leadership. This paradoxical balance
has been at the foundation of many of
my books such as Pathways to Performance and The Leader’s Digest as well as my workshops/retreats and
numerous articles. If you don’t
have either book, you can read some
excerpts on this balance on our web
site at http://www.clemmer.net/Leadership_articles/subject_2.aspx.
The “Management
vs. Leadership” article should
make the distinction especially clear.
I could be accused of splitting hairs
with the management-leadership distinction.
But I find it is vitally important for
people in management roles to understand
the contrasting and complementary aspects
of their management and leadership behaviors.
So while I am arguing that we can’t
manage change, I strongly agree with
your point that we can – and should
– lead change.
I see managing change as coming from
a quest to remove uncertainty and make
organizational life march to some orderly
step-by-step process. Leadership recognizes
that life isn’t that predictable
or controllable. However, leaders can
- and should - establish conditions
(culture/environment) and exercise principles
that successfully guide continuous change
and improvement.
The 10% figure is an estimate from
my own experiences and what seems to
continually come through in research
on leadership/organization development.
I don’t have any hard numbers
to back it up.
I also agree that culture can and should
be shaped – again through leadership.
You may have discovered that I have
a whole section of workshops/retreats
on Leading a High Performance Culture
that provides tools and techniques proven
very successful at doing that. The CLEMMER
Group has helped numerous Clients reshape
their cultures. It’s generally
an eighteen-month to three-year process
depending upon how radical the change
is and how committed the leaders are
to sticking with it.
Thanks again for your feedback. I hope
I have clarified your points further
and you see that we are much closer
in our views than you might have thought.
Jim
Emotional
Intelligence Even More Important in Electronic
Age
Milli Murray sent me the
following e-mail in response to an item
on Emotional Intelligence in the August
issue of The Leader Letter.
She makes an excellent point on how EI
is becoming ever more important. It’s
clearly a major factor in leadership effectiveness.
“I really enjoyed
the article on Emotional Intelligence.
In an age where people are judged and
recruited to positions more by their
technical abilities and credentials
than by their softer skills, it is good
to see that research shows you need
the emotional intelligence to deal with
many of the issues that impact senior
management. So often the dollar is the
bottom line and the human resources
are not considered to be of importance.
People with emotional intelligence will
recognize that our human resources are
our most valuable resource. Without
them we don’t travel too far.
I think more and more
EI becomes important, particularly in
an age where everything is instantaneous
and we communicate mainly through electronic
mediums. People become isolated in their
cubicles and someone who has the emotional
intelligence will break through those
barriers. Leaders with emotional intelligence
will do some of their managing by “walking
around”, will get to know their
employees, draw them out and get them
involved, be personable and approachable,
and through actions will let employees
know they are valued.
Thanks for sharing your Issues of The
Leader Letter – I always
enjoy them and share your articles with
my colleagues.”
Milli Murray, Director, Special Projects
Alberta Government
Not
That Kind of Moose-on-the-Table!
In August a web site visitor read my
blog entry "Moose Crossing Ahead" and left the following post. My reply
follows.
“Have you ever eaten moose?
I live in Alaska and it was my ‘beef’
(only better for you) growing up.
Good stuff, that. Just curious what
you're planning to do with the ‘moose’
bit.”
Amy Jane
Hi Amy,
I never have eaten moose. All of my
moose work has been of the metaphorical
kind! This fall you'll get the full
taste of what we're doing with the moose
bit when my new Moose on the Table book
is available.
Watch the road ahead!
Jim
Powerful
Proof That Leaders Are Made, Not Born
For over thirty years
I’ve believed to the core of my
being that high performers are made, not
born. Otherwise I would have given up
long ago!
When I was a sales trainer with Culligan
Water Conditioning back in the seventies
I wrote a fictitious (and facetious) series
of birth and death announcements making
fun of the popular misconception that
we’re either born talented or not.
I revamped and revised the announcements
along with a passionate passage outlining
my argument in 1994 when I wrote Pathways
to Performance.
You can read all this in my article Leaders
are Made, not Born. The main point
of this piece is that if we are not working
hard to continually improve our leadership
skills because we weren't "born with
natural talent" then we are either
copping out, misinformed, or both. Read
the article at http://www.clemmer.net/articles/article_316.aspx.
Here are a few more of my articles and
book excerpts continuing my strong contention
that we make ourselves:
Leadership
and Learning are Indispensable
Not all learners are leaders. But the
research clearly shows that the strongest
leaders are continuous learners. They
are self-made leaders.
Blazing
Our Own Unique Leadership Path
Leaders are made not born. Developing
our "gift" starts with a clear
and constant focus on where we're going,
what we believe in, and why we exist —
but it also demands persistence.
Interested
in Leadership, or Committed to Becoming
a Leader?
Many managers in leadership roles have
stunted personal growth. We can focus
on the gain of improvement by keeping
our preferred future and purpose firmly
in front of us, and develop the "habit"
of personal improvement.
So I was DELIGHTED to come across
the article on “The Making of an
Expert” in the July-August 2007
issue of Harvard Business Review. I devoured
the piece hungrily with pen furiously
underlining and making notes. I quickly
compiled the following excerpt from the
article for a slide I’ll now be
using in my leadership development and
personal growth workshops:
“….based on rigorous
research (from over 100 leading scientists)
that looked at exceptional performance
using scientific methods that are verifiable
and reproducible…in a variety
of domains: surgery, acting, chess,
writing, computer programming, ballet,
music, aviation, firefighting, and many
others.
Consistently and overwhelmingly, the
evidence showed that experts are always
made, not born (their emphasis).
….the journey to truly superior
performance is neither for the faint
of heart nor for the impatient.
The development of genuine expertise
requires struggle, sacrifice, and honest,
often painful self-assessment.”
“The Making of an Expert,”
K. Anders Ericsson, Michael J. Prietula,
and Edward T. Cokely, Harvard Business
Review, July-August 2007
“This article is amazing
and 'accurate.'
I have been taught by some managers
that management skills are a privilege,
not a right. To me this means that I
have no way of making it to the 'top'.
I won't be given that privilege.
It has taken me a long time, but I now
believe these managers were grossly
mistaken.
Thank you for your time in putting these
articles together. I take away a great
deal of information when reading these
articles.”
Regards,
Don Semple, QA Jr Analyst
RBC Financial
My
Top Ten Articles
The
single biggest driver of traffic to our
web site (by far) is my collection of
nearly 300 indexed book excerpts, columns,
and articles. I've made them freely available
for you to read, reprint, and pass along
to others. And now you can even track
which articles are most popular with my
readers. The next time you go to the articles
page (http://www.clemmer.net/articles/),
you'll see a Top Ten list. It updates
dynamically, so you will always know what
the hot topic is by day, week, month,
or year.
Moose Contest
Winners
Over the
last few months I've asked for feedback
on our web site redesign.
As an incentive I'm giving signed copies of Moose on the
Table to twenty-five lucky winners.
If you've won, we'll be sending you an email in the
next couple of days.
If you are interested in
reading the results of the site survey, click
here.
Thoughts
That Make You Go Hmmmm….Ensuring
You Don’t Become a Moose
“I make mistakes. I'll be
the second to admit it.”
- Jean Kerr, American playwright
“…. people around us
may tend to collude with our denial.
Among the more difficult kinds of information
to get in organizational life is honest,
constructive feedback about how we are
doing, especially about our lapses.
Coworkers, subordinates, and bosses
have an easier time complaining to each
other out of earshot of a person than
having an honest and open talk with
that person about what's wrong. There
is a Faustian bargain in this collusion
to act as though everything is fine
when in fact it is not, for we buy the
illusion of harmony and effectiveness
at the cost of the truth that could
open the way to genuine improvement.”
- Daniel Goleman, Working with Emotional
Intelligence
“The major difference between
the most and least successful executives
... the latter's lack of awareness.
Successful executives are critical of
their own performance. Unsuccessful
executives are critical of the performance
of others.”
- Harry Levinson, The Exceptional
Executive
“Hearing ‘reflective
backtalk’ from friends, colleagues,
spouses, and significant others allows
us to ‘true’ ourselves in
relation to their perceptions. With
this input we can integrate our internal
conversations with data from the external
world to enrich the process of knowing
ourselves better.”
- Warren Bennis and Joan Goldsmith, Learning to Lead: A Workbook on
Becoming a Leader
“If one or two people tell
you that you're an ass, you can ignore
them. But if three or four people tell
you you're an ass, you might think about
putting on a saddle.”
- Yiddish saying
Most
Popular October Improvement Points
Improvement Points is a free service providing a key thought or quotation from one of my articles, provided three times per week, directly to your e-mail inbox. Each complimentary Improvement Point links directly into the full article on our web site that spawned it. If you'd like to read more about that day's Improvement Point, you can choose to click through to the short article for a quick five-minute read. This is your opportunity for a short pause that refreshes, is an inspirational vitamin, or a quick performance boost. You can circulate especially relevant or timely articles or Improvement Points to your team, Clients, or colleagues for further discussion or action.
Here are the three most popular Improvement
Points we sent out in October:
Inspiring and Energizing with
Strong Verbal Communications
When I was eighteen and starting my
Culligan career I took a Dale Carnegie
sales course. I followed that with their
public speaking course. Both had a major
impact on my leadership performance.
I came to realize that learning the
basic persuasion skills of clarifying
and simplifying what we're trying to
say, tuning in to our audience, and
grabbing them by the handles of their
emotions, is critical to effective leadership.
http://www.clemmer.net/articles/article_85.aspx
Measurement and Feedback are
Vital to Improvement
Managers aren't comfortable with feedback.
They haven't learned how to get it and
how to give it effectively. So measurements
turn into "gotchas" to be
avoided.
http://www.clemmer.net/articles/article_222.aspx
Choice More than Chance Determines
Our Circumstance
Dwelling on our problems rather than
our possibilities comes all too naturally.
We often expect the worst and then say
"see, I told you that would happen"
when it happens. Too often we choose
to curse the darkness rather than light
a candle.
http://www.clemmer.net/articles/article_310.aspx
Feedback and Follow-Up
I am always delighted to hear from readers of The Leader Letter with feedback, reflections, suggestions, or differing points of view. Nobody is ever identified in The Leader Letter without their permission.
I am also happy to explore customized, in-house adaptations of any of my material for your team or organization. Drop me an e-mail at Jim.Clemmer@Clemmer.net.
Keep learning, laughing, loving, and leading – living life just for the L of it!!
Jim
Please post or forward this newsletter to colleagues, Clients, or associates you think might be interested - or on a 'need-to-grow' basis. If you received this newsletter from someone else, and would like to subscribe, click here: www.clemmer.net/newsletter/leader_signup.aspx
The CLEMMER Group
10 Pioneer Drive, Suite 105, Kitchener, ON N2P 2A4
Phone: (519) 748-1044 ~ Fax: (519) 748-5813
E-mail: service@clemmer.net
http://www.clemmer.net
Copyright © 2007 Jim Clemmer and The CLEMMER Group
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