Recommended reading

Obvious, but sometimes easily forgotten!

What will you start today?

http://www.theleadershiphub.com/blogs/secret-finishing-starting

A good article on the leadership hub by JLCTaggart reminding us that leaders are not only found at the top.

This reinforces my belief that there are great leaders at every level and we have to make sure we don’t get in their way and just let them get on with it.

Hope you enjoy.

http://www.theleadershiphub.com/blogs/are-you-leader-or-follower

No doubt your organisation has a set of values that have been set out as a guide for employees in their day to day work. The importance of walking the talk around the values should not be forgotten.

Clear and consistent values are an essential element of successful businesses. History shows that they truly live the values and bring them to life not through policies and procedures, but ultimately by what they do and how they do it. They are value driven.

Tony Hsieh’s book Delivering Happiness is a great read about how he successfully grew Zappos and worked to define the values, keeping them alive as the company grew and using them as a guide for everything the company did in interactions with customers, employees and suppliers.

So let’s not forget that whilst policies and procedures are important elements of an organisation, what counts is what we do and the intentions that underpin it as it is this that will be observed and replicated throughout the organisation. Enron and Lehman Brothers are a few of many examples where the stated values were not demonstrated by the company leaders and disaster resulted.

It is worthwhile regularly reminding yourelf and the team of what the values are and being clear about what those values look like in action. If people do not see the values in action then the piece of paper they are written on is both worthless and useless.

“Achieving success in work and in life, one conversation at a time”

Scott defines a fierce conversation as “one in which we come out from behind ourselves into the conversation and make it real”.

I enjoyed how her passion comes out in the book and the way she challenges us to ask questions of ourself in the first instance and then to ask questions and listen rather than make judgement and give advice. The book is filled with examples illustrating her concepts and gives clear practical steps to follow.

A highly recommended read that will challenge you to get out of your comfort zone and bring about real change by making every conversation fierce.

“A small group of people so committed to something larger than themselves that they will not be denied”

Katzenbach, J and Smith, D (1993) The Wisdom of Teams: Creating the high-performance organization.

I liked this . Does your team fit within this definition? Or is it like many teams where the combined efforts of the team add up to less than the sum of the individual efforts?

If you want to undertsand more about team performance I would recommend reading The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. A leadership fable by Patrick Lencioni

I read a great article ‘Re-imagining leadership and re-energising the workplace’ by David Marquet a former US Submarine commander. Marquet took on the USS Sante Fe and turned the crew from one of the poorest performing to top performer.

The article outlines his approach to leadership that worked so well. He describes it; “Our revolution embraces the notion that “I lead myself.” I am responsible for my intellectual energy and passion. At the same time, it rejects the notion that leaders lead people. What do leaders do then? Well, they create the structures where people lead themselves.”

It is an interesting read and really reminds us that we can lead all we want, but if we do not create the right environment that motivates people, gives people a sense of their own worth and feeling of control as well as challenging them, then we will not succeed.

I particularly liked his concept around operational briefings saying that the leaders should in fact not give direction but instead expect team members to come prepared having already spent time deciding what they feel is the appropriate thing to do. The role of the leader is not to tell, but to ask questions to verify that all has been thought off and confirm the arrangements across the team. He called this “certifications”.

In hospitality we have a lot of briefings – would a change of approach change the results for you and the team not only in terms of immediate operational outcomes but also employee motivation and engagement?

Let me know what you think or, if you are working with this approach, the difference it has made for you.