The Simplest Thing That Works

Excellence is Riveting

Wimbledon 2008: John McEnroe hails Rafael Nadal victory as greatest final ever - Wimbledon 2008 Championships – Tennis - Telegraph .

I don't know what you were doing yesterday.  I spent almost 5 hours watching an astonishing display of focus, skill, talent, heart and total commitment: the Federer v. Nadal "gentleman's singles" title match at Wimbledon.

I've never been a big tennis fan, but I spent the weekend staying at a house where there was never a doubt about how Sunday would be spent.  And I have to say, I got completely and totally engaged.  These guys were simply amazing...it didn't matter that I don't really understand how tennis is scored, and that I was getting filled in on their careers as the match progressed.  You can tell when someone's world-class fantastic at something, even when you're less than a novice at that thing yourself.

There were some rallies (I found out that's what they're called) that actually seemed impossible.  How did Nadal even get to that place on the court? How did he get his racquet under that ball, let alone return it to the exact right spot on Feder's side of the net? And how did Federer get airborne like that to return it? 

And what does this have to do with work?  Well, dear reader, you've heard my contention that doing anything to the best of your ability yields both excellence and joy, and this is just such a great example of that. A few times in my life, I've experienced Nadal/Federer-level of customer service, for example, and it was a pure delight.  I know I've been privileged to work with teams that are operating at near-world-class heights, and it's been exhilarating...for them, for me, and for the bottom line.

A do believe there's something in each of us that exults in mastery; and that mastery demonstrated improves and graces the world.

Go for it!

 

What Makes a Team Great

Last night, I was reading an article online, and the author (a venture capitalist) started out by saying that he thought a great senior team was more important to the success of an enterprise than a great idea. "Yes," I thought. "I think that's true - I agree." Then he went on to make a pretty good case for it: how an idea without the people who can execute it is just an idea, but a great team can find a great idea if the one they have isn't so great, etc. etc.  I continued to agree.

Then he and I parted company.  He described what he meant by a great team: he had a bullet-pointed list of six or seven things, and I realized they were all thought-based.  That is, each item on the list started with a phrase like "Understands how..." or "Recognizes that..." or "Knows when..." 

And I really disagree. In my experience and observation, there's an enormous difference between knowing something and knowing how to do it.  And then there's often a further gap between knowing how to do something and being able to do it.  Let me give you an example, based on one of his bullet-pointed items.  The author believes that one element of a great business team is, "An execution plan with both strategies and tactics articulated and supported." 

And I say - that's not an indication of a great team yet: that's a good first step.  Having such a plan (knowing that such a plan is needed, and being able to think through it)  is, unfortunately, absolutely no guarantee that the team then knows how to execute it.  And even if they do, that doesn't mean they'll actually be able to do it.  That they'll have the leadership, teaming, communication and management skills and mindset they'll need to make it happen.

So I'd revise it to say that one element of a great business team is "Being able to conceive and successfully implement an execution plan with both strategies and tactics articulated and supported."

What's your experience?  I'd love to hear your stories of senior teams who could talk a good game, but couldn't actually make things happen...and why.  Let's dig into the difference between knowing, knowing how, and doing.

Asia, then Europe, then America

FT.com / Comment & analysis / Comment - We must break the male cartel in the workplace.

I found this article really insightful and clearly thought-out.  And very embarrassing. As I was reading, the author's premise became clear - that Asia is way out ahead of Europe in terms of recognizing the importance of having women in senior positions in the workplace, and putting them in those positions.  And as I continued to read, it became increasingly clear that what she considers "behind" was still better than we in America have done and are doing.

But I put aside my chagrin: there are wonderful facts in this article.  Here's my favorite:

According to a recent study by McKinsey, the management consultancy, companies with a higher proportion of women in senior management are on average 48 per cent more profitable than rivals. Diversified management means better management. Including more women in top positions, both in public and private sectors, changes decision-making processes fundamentally, as women tend to play down formalities and communicate directly, overcoming organisational blockages.

I'm pretty sure her proposed solution - introducing legislation for gender balance on company boards, at universities and in government - won't work in the US. But I can keep throwing stuff like this into the conversation...

Big Fun!

Last Friday, I experienced one of the most fun and useful meetings ever. It was an intersection of many good things: wonderful topic + great people + exciting possibilities + excellent outcomes.  If you're a regular reader of my blog, you may remember a few weeks ago, I mentioned that my editor at St. Martin's, Phil Revzin, had suggested that we use the principles of my new book to create the marketing plan for the book.  So that's what we did.

The whole book team got together at my agent Jim's office: Jim and two of his folks, Lindsay Edgecombe and Kerry Evans; Phil, the senior editor at St. Martin's; my publicist Barbara Cave Henricks, her business partner Dennis Welch and her online guru Sara Schneider; and me.  We spent the day creating vision and strategy for the marketing of  Being Strategic, and then each of us committed to creating tactical plans for the strategies within our spheres of influence/job description.

Oh!  It was so delightful: I was in heaven.  To be facilitating this process (which I believe is so useful, I wrote a whole book about it!) with such a lovely, smart, capable, collaborative group of people...and to experience all of them being so committed to supporting the success of the book - it was just wonderful.

 

In a Spirit of Selflessness

The Top 100 Management and Leadership Blogs That All Managers Should Bookmark - HR World.

A friend of mine, Mitch Ditkoff, sent me this list of the 100 top Management/ Leadership blogs from the editors of HR World.

Now, of course we all recognize that the omission of The Simplest Thing was simply a grievous and inexplicable oversight on their part. <g> That having been said, it's a great list and invite you to sample it.  There's lots to be learned here, and thought about, and applied.

And, given the number of business blogs that exist these days (I just went onto Technorati and found 1,100 business blogs), it's nice to have somebody do some screening.

Do you have a favorite business blog that's not on this list?

The World IS Flat

Global Sources - Products.

A very cool global thing happened today.  I got an email from my friend Dylan at 800CEOREAD, letting me know they'd gotten a request from Chief Executive China to translate and publish my ChangeThis manifesto, Growing Great New Managers, in their magazine and on their website.

I agreed - and suggested they note to their readers that Growing Great Employees, on which the article is based, is also available in Chinese.

The idea that something I wrote, sitting here in New York, might help a manager in Tianjin to develop his employees, or an executive in Shenzhen to decide what kind of team he wants to build -- that makes me very happy. 

Maybe it shouldn't - maybe I should be more worried about global competition...but I'm with Friedman on this: I think there's more than enough to go around.  

TA-DA!!

Greatwebmeetings.com | Great web meetings.

So, I'm very excited to note that Wayne Turmel, my friend, fellow blogger , and business podcaster supreme has started his own company, and this is the link to his website. As a participant in many NOT-great web meetings, I think Wayne is on to something here: there's a niche to be filled, and he's the guy to fill it. Here's how the greatwebmeetings site describes what he's trying to do:

For the last 5 years Wayne has been focused on teaching people how to use web-based presentation tools to do more than present; to communicate and connect. His passion for the topic stems from his background, not as a technology buff (no geek is he!) but as someone committed to helping people get the best out of their people and themselves no matter the medium.

He's been asked to host a webinar in association with the folks at Dimdim on "guerilla managing remote teams." It's on June 26th at 11am ET and should be great...

Look - a great blog

NinaSimosko.com .

I love discovering new (to me) blogs.  Here's a good one.  It's by a young woman named Nina Simosko, and I really like the way she thinks.  Here's how she describes her blog:

This blog provides aspiring leaders with a forum to investigate ideas, innovations and approaches to leadership. I welcome your thoughts on these topics or any other that affects the “nature of work" and the advancement of women in the corporate world.

At the risk of sounding enormously old, I think it's this next generation of women like Nina who are creating the world of work that I want to see; the one that takes full advantage of everyone's gifts and talents. 

Freed by the Web

Web 2.0 for business class - San Jose Mercury News.

Found this article today when I googled "collaboration" and "business."  It talks about "SaaS" - which stands for "software as a service,"  and is pronounced "sass."

If you're familiar with Salesforce, it's a great example.  If you're not familiar with it, Salesforce is a subscription-based, online customer database service.  So, instead of buying a CRM software package, and having someone in your company manage it, you subscribe to Salesforce, have everybody take the tutorial -- and everybody manages it.  It all happens online. 

NetSuite is another example: they offer not only CRM, but also e-commerce and accounting support.

It seems that the technological advances we call Web 2.0, along with almost ubiquitious high-speed internet access, have made these approaches not only feasible, but preferable.

Proteus (my company) uses Salesforce, and we've found it remarkably easy to use and helpful -- especially given the fact that we're spread out all over the country (and sometimes the world).  Using a computer-based CRM just never really made sense for us.

As the article notes, these services, and others like them popping up all the time, are the business analogs to facebook and myspace: business-focused ways to promote the same kind of online information-sharing and collaboration among users.

I'm fascinated to see how this evolves over the next few years...and how we'll figure out ways to balance our need for real-time, face-to-face interaction with our ever-increasing capabilities on the web. 

What's Up With This, Part II

In response to my post below, I got a great comment from my new friend and fellow blogger/consultant Wally Bock, who pointed out that the business guru list was based largely on people’s popularity from having written business books – and that very few business books are written by women.

Hmmm, I thought: so I went to the Penguin Portfolio website and found that, of the 50 or so books Portfolio published from the end of 2006 to the end of 2007, only 3 were by women: Carly Fiorina, me, and a woman named Catherine McBreen (who was listed as co-author with a guy).

So then I did a little more research and found - nothing. I'm a good Googler, and I was completely unable to find anything referencing the percentage of business books written by women. So I went to 800CEOREAD to look at their top sellers for the past month: of the top 25, one was written by a woman (and it was a book for women - called Inside Every Woman: Using the 10 Strengths You Didn't Know You Had to Get the Career and Life You Want Now).

Again I say – what’s up with that? I have some theories: First, I think men are much more likely than women, as a group, to think they have something important to say to the world and to be willing to put themselves forward to say it in a very public forum. Second, I suspect publishers are more likely to listen to a man with a good idea for a business book than to a woman. Third, most business books are written by people in their 40s, 50s and 60s (accumulated wisdom, etc.), and I think it’s the folks now in their 20s and 30s who are going to level the playing field in this regard.

But what do you think?