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NOVEMBER 2004
Choosing to be a leader
The 8th Habit was released this month. If you have read Stephen Covey's "7 Habits" you will know what I am talking about. This new "habit" is not really new, but offers some important direction for all of us as we go about our business. He begins his book by citing a number of daunting statistics reflecting the lack of commitment and interest we have in our workforce today. For instance, less than 40% of our workforce have a clear understanding of what the organization is really trying to achieve. This raises the question, "what should managers and other key influencers be doing to change this?
Leading vs. managing
Leader is not a position but rather something we choose to be. Leaders show us the way; they show us where we should be going. Managers show us the best way to get there; in other words they deal with the process. We have all heard the phrase "born leader" - Covey responds, "leaders are not made or born, it is a choice we all make." If we want to change our business, moving it from "Good to Great", as Jim Collins would say, we have to choose to be leaders. But there is more, we have to influence others to be leaders, and we have to hire people who are leaders.
1. The state of our team
The number one problem I encounter as I work with resellers is ineffective team members. Passionate, principle driven, and creative employees are scarce and hard to find. Internal conflict between sales and delivery is a common theme. Compensation confusion and a lack of clear vision work together to create discouragement and sometimes even anger. So while business owners are struggling with figuring out what technology to build solutions around (a very important question), they don't have a team to move the business forward. Peter Senge once showed that teams frequently produce less than individuals because people are not able to work together. Something is wrong with this picture!
2. Root problems
Peter Senge addressed what he calls the "root problem" in one of his early books, "the Fifth Discipline." Everyone has a personal vision. They may not have formalized it, but its there. Its the place they want to be (which may or may not be realistic). As each person works to achieve their vision they end up competing with each other making the team inefficient. There has to be a shared vision or a common vision. So instead of having one general company vision statement with team members working independently, we have synergy between many personal vision statements. When this happens, each person begins to contribute to the company's success while they work to achieve their personal vision.
Covey's 8th Habit takes this concept and explores how our management style, taken from the industrial age, turns our workers into assembly line workers. Highly paid professionals are generally put into a box and governed by bureaucracy (Jim Collins points out that we do this to compensate for the wrong hiring decisions we have made). The result is codependency. Employees who once had excitement and creativity begin to feel that their creative contributions are not wanted, so they develop a codependency on management directives. In other words, they stop thinking and creating, and start just waiting to be told what to do. We take excited team members and move them to compliant employees.
3. The solution
Change starts with leaders. In past ChannelConcepts, I addressed hiring people of character. In this letter I am recommending we evaluate our own character and choices. In the 8th habit, the first section deals with something I personally went through when I started working with resellers on their businesses. We all have talents, we have a passion for something - a personal vision to contribute or make a difference, we have values we desire to live by - what I have come to call "non optional principles", and we see needs out there that we want to meet. The nexus of these things is what Stephen Covey calls Voice; I call it "Life Calling". It was through an analysis of these things that I chose to step out and begin a new business in an economy that wasn't really flourishing at the time. As leaders we need to understand what our calling is. As we pursue our calling we find greater fulfillment. Then as we manage the employees of our organizations, we provide leadership by understanding their calling and personal vision. If we can harness their personal vision, Peter Senge says, "this tension between the current reality and their vision will create the energy - the creative tension, to propel them forward". The alternative is frustration. In the end we should be looking for employees with personal visions that line up with the vision we have for our company. People who cannot share that vision will likely never become big contributors to the overall success of the organization.
4. So what is the 8th Habit?
The 8th Habit is simply this, finding your voice (or personal calling), and inspiring others to find theirs.
So how does this apply to your business. We need a new team - a team that is creative, enthusiastic, and committed to driving the business forward to achieve the company's mission. Their life calling or Voice must line up with the purpose of your business. This new team starts with you. The technology market is recovering in some ways, but I don't believe it will be like it was in the late 90s any time soon. It is going to require us to build compelling solutions and customer service. All of this is going to take leadership, dedication, and a tremendous amount of creative team work. I recommend reading the 8th Habit and building this into the culture of your organization.
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