ITLP Tuesday Readings

If you've been through the IT Leaders Program, you know about Jim Bruce's "Tuesday Readings" emails. I keep this ITLP "Tuesday Readings" blog as a great way to maintain an archive of Jim's very interesting and insightful emails. But did you know Jim keeps his own blog?

It's called Jim's Ramblings, and it makes for good reading. All of the entries that are re-posted here are at Jim's blog. Check it out!

And if you've been through ITLP, you may also be interested in the Leadership Development Community.

Posted by Jim Hall at 5:06 PM | Permalink

For today's reading, we actually have a short video Five Competencies for Adapting to a Changing World. The speaker is Dr. Helen Haste, visiting professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and professor of psychology at the University of Bath, Bath, England.

In this video (which is part three of a four part series), Dr. Bath identifies five "21st century skills" -- competencies really, skill plus adaptation --

1. Managing ambiguity
2. Agency and responsibility
3. Finding and sustaining community
4. Managing emotion
5. Managing technological change

that we should have in our tool boxes and that we should be teaching when we have opportunity.

The video is well worth watching and the skills worth learning. . . . . jim

Posted by Jim Hall at 10:10 AM | Permalink

For today's reading we turn to John Baldoni's blog at the Harvard Business Review for his piece How to Make People Passionate About Their Work.

Baldoni notes that generating passion for what you do is essential, and doubly so in difficult times. He goes on to say that it is essential for a leader to have passion as it is vital to convincing others that their work matters.

He offers three suggestions for cultivating passion:

1. Focus on the positive. Passion in leaders can be felt. They get out of their offices and are seen. You talk with them in the hallways, you see them interacting with others, you know that they are excited about what they are doing. They use these times to tell about the good things.

2. Address the negatives. These leaders know firsthand what is working and what is not. Because they have strong relationships, they can mobilize staff to resolve problems.

3. Set high expectations. When you know and care about the work and have a high standard, you will challenge others to do the same.

But passion alone is no guarantee of success. Radiating passion is important to encourage staff but having passion is not excuse for ignoring the business fundamentals.

Passion, enthusiasm, and energy are contagious. Go spread some around this week.

. . . . . jim

Posted by Jim Hall at 9:35 AM | Permalink

Much of a leader's time is spent, formally or informally, working to influence decision makers, typically peers, cross-organizational colleagues, or those higher up in the organization. The Tuesday Reading this week Effectively Influencing Decision Makers: Ensuring That Your Knowledge Makes a Difference (PDF) focuses on just this subject.

To begin the article, Marshall Goldsmith quotes Peter Drucker as having said that knowledge workers can be defined as people who know more about what they are doing than their managers do. He then notes that though knowledge workers have years of education and training for that work, they have little training in how to effectively influence decision makers.

Goldsmith then sets forth ten guidelines to help in your influencing of decision makers:

1. When putting forth a proposal to a decision maker, your responsibility is to sell the proposal. It is not the decision maker's responsibility to buy. You need to take responsibility for achieving results.

2. Focus on the needs of the decision makers and those they represent, not on achieving your objectives.

3. Focus to win "the big battles." Don't waste energy and capital on the trivial points.

4. Present real cost-benefit analyses. Don't just sell the benefits.

5. Never remain silent on the ethical issues.

6. Remember, those you are working to influence are human too.

7. Don't be disrespectful.

8. Support whatever decision is made. This is not a time to say "They made the wrong decision!" Treat the decision maker like you would want to be treated in a similar situation.

9. Make a positive difference - don't just try to win or be right.

10. Focus on the future; let the past go.

By spending some time learning to influence decision makers, you can make a much larger positive difference. Today is a good day to start.

. . . . . jim

Posted by Jim Hall at 9:48 AM | Permalink

There's lots of advice on finding and attracting staff and on identifying and retaining top performers you already have. Stephen DeMaio, in a recent blog entry How to Identify Employees' Hidden Talents argues that it is even more important to look for your current staff's hidden strengths to find new skills and talents that have value to the organization.

DeMano suggests four approaches:

1. Turn a compliment into an interview. Don't just praise someone for an excellent job. Have a conversation to find out what was behind it.

2. Analyze how people think, not just what they do. What was your thinking behind taking that approach?

3. Ask for the reasons behind their preferences. Why does a particular staff member have the preferences he/she does? What project characteristics are root causes of fulfillment? Knowing this enables a manager to better match the project to the staff member.

4. Ask about your staff's dreams. What do you dream of someday doing?

DeMano notes that treating each staff member as "an ocean of talent" gives you access to a much broader pool of talent.

Give it a try this week. You may be surprised by what you discover!

. . . . . jim

Posted by Jim Hall at 9:34 AM | Permalink

There's lots of advice on finding and attracting staff and on identifying and retaining top performers you already have. Stephen DeMaio, in a recent blog entry How to Identify Employees' Hidden Talents argues that it is even more important to look for your current staff's hidden strengths to find new skills and talents that have value to the organization.

DeMano suggests four approaches:

1. Turn a compliment into an interview. Don't just praise someone for an excellent job. Have a conversation to find out what was behind it.

2. Analyze how people think, not just what they do. What was your thinking behind taking that approach?

3. Ask for the reasons behind their preferences. Why does a particular staff member have the preferences he/she does? What project characteristics are root causes of fulfillment? Knowing this enables a manager to better match the project to the staff member.

4. Ask about your staff's dreams. What do you dream of someday doing?

DeMano notes that treating each staff member as "an ocean of talent" gives you access to a much broader pool of talent.

Give it a try this week. You may be surprised by what you discover!

. . . . . jim

Posted by Jim Hall at 9:34 AM | Permalink