Engagement, Gardening, and Human Sigma: The Future of Business

Folk artist Christine Lavin once sung a whimsical song called "Sensitive New-Age Guy." I think we're entering the era of the sensitive new-age leader (hmm, maybe another song parody opportunity). In all seriousness, it seems as if the idea of humane leadership is finally reaching critical mass. The focus on cost-cutting and hierarchical leadership is finally being seen as the dinosaur that it is.

There are a number of books, blogs, and articles about the need for engagement. A good one that did well in 2007 is Growing Great Employees by Erika Anderson. Using a gardening analogy, it makes the case that we must cultivate employees and encourage their natural growth by creating a nurturing environment in which people can prosper. Not only that, it offers practical tips and templates for doing so. See Anderson's blog at: http://thesimplestthing.typepad.com/

More recently, John H. Fleming and John Asplund released Human Sigma. Based on extensive studies from the Gallup organization, it makes the case that it's not good enough to have great employee engagement or great customer engagement. You need both. Their studies showed dramatic financial advantages in companies that have employeed both, no matter how good other organizations were at one or the other. The book offers a metric for measuring your "Human Sigma," as well as guidelines for success.

Here's a link to a great Havard Business Review article on Human Sigma (in PDF format): http://interdevelopmentals.org/pdf/hbs-human-sigma.pdf#search=%22human%20sigma%20metrics%22

Empathy: Lessons from Iwo Jima

I just saw Clint Eastwood's magnificent film, Letters from Iwo Jima, this weekend. Of course, as usual I end up looking at everything through the lense of leadership and project management lessons, which drives my wife crazy.

The film offered numerous contrasting examples of good leadership and poor leadership. The differences weren't hard to spot. Besides strategic intuition, what separated the effective leaders from the rest of the pack (on both the Japanese and American sides) was an undeniable sense of empathy (much like the film's director, Clint Eastwood, did in making the film from the Japanese perspective).

Empathy, a key component of Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence, is an undervalued trait in leadership. Equally important is the wisdom to know what to do with that empathy. In the film, the leaders who showed empathy and restraint were able to make the right decisions, even in the heat of battle. Their moral compass served them well. Ironically, it was empathy that led them to be able to predict the moves of the enemy as well.

Then there were the less effective leaders who blindly followed rules, thought only of themselves, were obsessed with power, and looked at people as objects to be used. Go see the movie. You'll see leadership styles worthy of emulation, and those to avoid. Ultimately, the film is about human decency and indecency.

Right Brain Project Management

I recently re-read Daniel Pink's book, A Whole New Mind. I noticed now that it's out on paperback, the subtitle changed from "Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age" to "Why Right-Brainers will Rule the Future."

The latter is probably more accessible and gets to the heart of the book. The premise is that with more technical jobs being eliminated due to automation and offshore outsourcing, we're left clinging to the one thing that computers and offshore resources can't replace---the soft skills. It's not that offshore people don't have the capacity to do this, it's just not effective from a remote location.

The books specifically outlines Six Senses that are now required to compete in today's market (I'd add that these were always needed for effectiveness, but now it's a necessity for career survival). The Six Senses we need to build are:

1) Not just function, but DESIGN (the WOW factor)
2) Not just argument, but STORY (i.e. we need to be storytellers to make a good case)
3) Not just focus, but SYMPHONY (i.e. synthesis of complex relationships vs. heads-down analysis)
4) Not just logic, but EMPATHY (incidentally, the key trait in Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence)
5) Not just seriousness, buy PLAY (fun leads to employee satisfaction, which leads to customer satisfaction and profits. Therefore, Fun=$ !)
6) Not just accumulation, but MEANING

FACT (not from the book, but relevant nonetheless): Per a recent management forum of 70 business schools, many of them are requiring less quantitative courses and more leadership courses. Also, a number of organizations are now recruiting design students instead of MBAs.

The key is that the logical, sequential left-brain stuff is still necessary, but we need to compliment it with the more contextual and feeling right-brain skills. With communication being 90% of a project manager's job, I'd say this directly applies to project managers as well.

Below is a link to Pink's book on Amazon...

Amazon.com: A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future: Books: Daniel Pink

Leading and Influencing: The Project Manager's Secret Weapon

There's an excellent article by Frank Saladis on allPM about how to lead and influence others. Topics such as boosting your credibility, practicing empathy, and maintaining organizational awareness are discussed, as well as some good tips for engaging team members and obtaining buy-in.

From my experience, these are the things a project manager needs to get right. The rest is just details.

Here's the article. Well worth reading.

Positive Leadership in Project Management – Team Building, Influencing and Leadership By Frank P. Saladis, PMP :: ALLPM Project Management :: Project Manager - Project Management - Information - Forum Manager- PM Tools - Articles -PMI